“Let me see it, Lucien.”
He took the certificate from his pocket-book and they gravely examined it together.
“But,” said Lucien, “that isn’t all. Bat rang me up on the telephone just now to say that his father is going to give me a job.”
“What sort of a job?”
“I haven’t the least idea. It sounded like being manager of a mill, or a mine, near Cardiff — but I shouldn’t think it could be that, would you? Not that it matters. The point is that there’s a house, and an emolument, attached, and that I shall get experience and work till I’ve learnt to be of some use.”
“And we can be together,” added Sophie softly.
“We can be together all the time from now on, my sweet,” he assented.
“What about Clarissa?” she asked presently.
“What, indeed? I’m summoned to the presence at seven o’clock this very evening. I don’t know what she’s going to say, of course, but I shall give her the chance of saying it first. Then I’ll tell her I’ve got a job in view, and that I’ve suggested to you getting married on the strength of it.”
“She’ll say we’re not to,” Sophie murmured childishly.
Lucien shrugged his shoulders.
“Daddy isn’t going to be any help, I’m afraid,” she added.
“I suppose not,” Lucien acquiesced. A gleam of amusement came into his eyes. “Your grandmother, on the other hand, would be only too delighted to assist in an elopement to-morrow.”
They both laughed happily.
“Lucien, is Bat being noble about this?”
“Not that I know of. Nobility isn’t in his line, surely? I see what you mean, though — making things possible for his rival and the girl who threw him over. Well—” Lucien appeared to consider, “candidly, darling, I doubt if he is. Did Bat really terribly want to marry you?”
“Never,” said Sophie immediately.
“But I do,” very seriously returned Lucien, taking her into his arms.
Bat was forgotten as completely as though he had never been.
Both were astonished, and slightly appalled, when the clock struck seven.
“Don’t be far off, precious,” Lucien adjured Sophie. “Clarissa may be inspired to send for you and join our hands together — who knows?”
He went down to his mother’s room.
Sophie remained in the schoolroom, not really expecting to be sent for, least of all for the purpose suggested by Lucien.
A quarter of an hour passed, then half an hour, and still she was left undisturbed. It was time to go and dress for dinner.
Then a step, heavier and less rapid than Lucien’s, sounded outside the door, and Sophie’s father came in.
“Hullo, kid. Have you seen Clarissa?”
“Not since lunch.”
“Has Lucien?”
“He’s with her now.”
“That’s very good. That’s excellent. She’s given in, Sophia.”
“About us, daddy?” The colour rushed into Sophie’s face.
“That’s right,” Fitzmaurice nodded.
He came and joined her on the window-seat.
“You owe it to your father, my child, and don’t you forget it. I tackled her this afternoon, and made her hear reason.”
“How?”
“How?” repeated Fitzmaurice vaguely. “Don’t ask me how one manages a woman, Sophia. God knows — or the devil. I don’t. The point is that I did it.”
“But, daddy — it was wonderful of you!”
“I know,” said Fitzmaurice modestly.
“And you said you wouldn’t — that you couldn’t — do anything about it!”
“On thinking it over, I felt I ought to have a shot at it for your sake, Sophia. After all, I don’t know why I shouldn’t have a voice in settling who my own only child is to marry.”
“But is mummie — does she still mind frightfully?”
“Not she,” declared Fitzmaurice airily. “She was a bit sick about Clutterthorpe, I dare say, but luckily it hadn’t been given out, and she’ll still be able to tell people that you could have had him. By the way, Sophia, how did he take it — your giving him the chuck, I mean?”
“Very well,” said Sophie remorsefully. “But he did tell me that he thought his father would quite likely be satisfied at his having done his best, and wouldn’t worry him any more about getting married. And really and truly, I’m sure Bat never did want to marry.”
“I should think not!” heartily ejaculated her father. “No insult intended to you, Sophia, but who in their senses would? The two greatest mistakes I ever made in my life were when I went and got married. Not that I could help myself the second time.”
“Poor daddy.”
“Never been able to call my soul my own since,” Fitzmaurice grumbled. “Or anything else either.”
He paused, and a fleeting air of triumphant satisfaction passed across the mirror of ignoble feelings and desires that was Fitzmaurice’s face.
“Things are going to be a bit altered in future, I fancy,” he said. “I’ve shown her who’s master, once and for all.”
The door opened, and his expression altered with ludicrous haste.
Clarissa, the ravages in her appearance all smoothed away, her painted lips resolutely smiling, rustled in, wearing self-consciously a new lace frock that swept the floor.
Lucien followed her. As his eyes and Sophie’s met, he raised his brows expressively and gave her the shadow of a ribald wink.
“Darling,” said Clarissa’s small, crisp voice, and she put her arm across Sophie’s shoulders, “it’s all right. I had to go into every single thing and make sure that it was possible, and I’m going to arrange everything for you and Lucien. We’re going to forget everything, except that you two infants are to be made happy.”
Her face touched Sophie’s.
“Thank you, mummie,” murmured Sophie inadequately.
Clarissa swung round, her gaze seeking her husband.
“Reggie, she’s always been my child, and she’ll be more so than ever, if possible — only it isn’t.”
“That’s right,” Fitzmaurice agreed negligently. He looked at Lucien, who carefully avoided his eye.
There was a moment of awkward silence, broken by a rather hysterical laugh from Clarissa.
“Reg, you look too utterly degomme, standing there! For God’s sake, say something. I may tell you, children, that he’s absolutely been doing his best to put this through for you,” she added.
Feeling himself something of a hero, Fitzmaurice glanced round the room, as though collecting inaudible applause. Then, turning to Clarissa, he spoke earnestly.
“I say, Clarissa — it’s an occasion. Have up the 1914 Heidsieck for dinner to-night.”
XXI
THE PARTY
THE party decreed by Miss Fish assumed the magnitude of a celebration from the moment she learnt, through the Princesse, that Sophie and Lucien were engaged.
To her mingled horror and gratification, she received a picture post-card from monsieur Radow, informing her that he was coming back to “Anarajapurah” for one night, on purpose to attend the festivity.
“Why a picture post-card of the Zoo?” said Elinor, gazing at it distastefully. “I never go to the Zoo, on principle. What right have we to keep animals in captivity, I should like to know? Olivia, what about champagne? It seems to me that this is an occasion for champagne. Can one trust to the local wine merchant?”
“Certainly not,” said Olivia. “And I think, Elinor, that instead of champagne it would be better if you got yourself a new dress for the party.”
“A new dress?” said Miss Fish, in a high key of astonishment. “But what about my brown velveteen?”
What about it, indeed? thought Olivia, maintaining a silence that was full of significance.
“Well, well,” said Miss Fish, “it cost a great deal of money when my aunt originally bought it, and I’ve spent a certain amount on having it broug
ht up-to-date myself, more than once — but perhaps you’re right.”
Olivia thought remorsefully how much better tempered and less recalcitrant under criticism was Elinor than herself. She felt that she was not always sufficiently appreciative of Elinor’s good qualities. And she had to remind herself of this again when Elinor’s new dress came home from the shop — which it did astonishingly soon — and turned out to be of hand-woven orange linen, cut with a square decolletage, no waist-line, and a skirt that seemed to grow narrower as it neared Elinor’s ankles.
Fortunately, Olivia felt, Miss Fish was not sufficiently interested in her own appearance to seek appreciation on behalf of her clothes, although she expressed a generous admiration of Olivia’s black-and-gold evening dress.
“Though why you should go to London for it, with Ye Arts and Crafts Guild almost next door, I don’t pretend to understand,” said Miss Fish.
“No, I know you don’t,” Olivia said gently. “Let’s settle about the sandwiches.”
Amicably, they went into the question of refreshments for their guests.
Phyllis King also decided to have a new frock for the party, and made it herself, with help from the village dressmaker. It was not nearly as good as Olivia’s, but it was much better than Elinor’s.
“What about Rosalind and Orlando?” she asked wistfully of her sister-in-law. “You won’t want them, I suppose, as it’s an evening affair?”
“Of course we want them,” said Olivia quickly. “If you don’t think they’ll be bored with only grown-ups?”
“Oh, they love an outing!” joyfully cried little Mrs. King, apparently supposing herself to be speaking the truth.
So Orlando and Rosalind, rather pale and solemn in their best clothes, accompanied their parents to The Cottage, and were the first people to arrive at the studio, where Miss Fish greeted them as effusively as though she had not seen any of them for months.
“Harry has gone to fetch the Princesse in the car,” said Phyllis King importantly. This act of homage had been arranged between herself and Elinor, although the walk from “Anarajapurah” to the cottage was an affair of moments only.
“How many of them are coming?”
“The Princesse — and Mr. Montgomery, of course. The daughter has gone back to London — why, I’m sorry to say that I don’t know,” candidly interpolated Elinor. “And monsieur Radow has come back on purpose for the party I honestly believe, and he wanted to bring his Mr. Lawrence, but Mr. Lawrence wouldn’t come. And Lucien Marley is bringing Sophie Fitzmaurice.”
Olivia could not help thinking that the party would be an oddly-assorted collection of people. Nevertheless she had faith in Elinor Fish as a hostess, for Elinor had boundless enthusiasm, and a complete absence of self-consciousness that had successfully galvanized into brilliant life many a strange assortment of her own gathering-together.
Her confidence was justified.
Even before the arrival of monsieur Radow, who was late, although the Princesse declared that she had left him ready to start, Elinor had distributed cocktails, made animated conversation, and organized charades.
“Cliffe will help you,” said the Princesse gaily, and Cliffe Montgomery, as usual, obeyed.
Presently Sophie and Lucien arrived.
“Oh!” murmured the Princesse, next to Olivia, “how happy they look! How young!”
It was true.
“But where,” said Miss Fish, “where is monsieur Radow? Not lost again, surely?”
“Shall Cliffe go and look for him?”
“Shall I?” said Lucien.
“No, no, I want you,” the Princesse assured him, and she signed to him to come and sit beside her.
Miss Fish was arranging a charade from Greek history, portraying an obscure classical episode unfamiliar to anybody present but herself, and under cover of her activities the Princesse softly made eager inquiries.
“Is it perfectly all right, Lucien?”
“Perfectly. There’s been a miracle,” he assured her gravely.
“She has agreed to your marriage — to everything?” the Princesse asked.
“She even wants us to take over Mardale at once. But I think that’s only because we’ve decided to begin with a job that my defeated rival has procured for me.”
“The young man that Raoul disliked — the mountebank?”
“Yes, that one. I don’t know why he’s done it,” said Lucien reflectively. “It may be for Sophie’s blue eyes — which would show his good sense; or it may be pure magnanimity — which I suppose would show his good heart; or again, it may just be that he doesn’t like Clarissa much. But, as a matter of fact, she gave in before she knew anything about Bat’s offer.”
“Capricious,” said the Princesse, as though offering an explanation.
“Hardly to that extent,” Lucien suggested. “To oppose a marriage tooth and nail, and then suddenly turn round and say she’s thought it over, and it’s all excellent, and here is Mardale with her blessing — and all without giving any reason at all. Even for Clarissa, it’s excessive.”
“She has always been capricious,” the Princesse repeated.
Lucien shook his fair head.
“Something happened. But I don’t know what.
I don’t suppose I ever shall know. Clarissa doesn’t give much away. She said that Sophie’s father had persuaded her — partly. If he did, I should say it’s about the first thing he’s ever persuaded her of in his life.”
“It will very likely be the last one, too,” said the Princesse, and amusement flickered in the depths of her great dark eyes.
“Do you know anything about it?” suddenly demanded Lucien, turning round to look her full in the face.
The eyes of the Princesse met his unwaveringly.
She shook her head slowly from side to side.
“Nothing,” she asserted with gentle finality. “Nothing. But I am so glad, dear Lucien. I always told you it would come right. You and Sophie can have everything I have in the world if you like. I can easily live on next to nothing, and so can Catiche.”
Lucien knew that such was indeed the ineradicable conviction of the Princesse, and he smiled at her in affectionate recognition of her offer.
Then Miss Fish, from behind a screen, called to Olivia to put “something that would do for Greek music on to the gramophone,” and Lucien went to help her.
Just as they had decided that the Song of the Volga Boatmen was the nearest approach they could find to Elinor’s requirements, the door of the studio opened to admit monsieur Radow.
“Late, like usual,” he remarked philosophically, as he kissed Olivia’s hand.
Miss Fish darted out from behind the screen, draped in a table-cloth over the orange dress, and with her untidy shingled head bound fillet-wise in white tape, and greeted him enthusiastically.
“The concert — how did the concert go?”
“The recital went well. Lawrence was pleased. He can arrange another, he say. ‘Very well,’ I say,” monsieur Radow shrugged his shoulders, ‘“I am in your hands. Arrange me what you like, but no more ladies on the platform afterwards. Christ, no!’”
“Does he bring ladies on the platform afterwards? What do they do?” said Olivia, really wanting to know what Radow did.
“Yeh. He bring them. He think, if they have money — and naturally, he bring only the ones that have — then we can get it, to help with the expenses and so on. Lawrence tell them how musical they are, how they understand my playing. He is a good agent, Lawrence.”
“And do they understand your playing?” asked Miss Fish sceptically.
“No — oo!” Raoul Radow’s negative was scornfully prolonged. “One lady say to me: ‘O monsieur Radow, I think you’re wonderful!’ And I answer: ‘You think I am wonderful, do you? And me, I dam’ well know I am.’ But I did not let Lawrence hear that.”
“You were well advised not to,” said the Princesse.
“Sit down, Radow, and let us have the charade.�
�
(“Not the gramophone,” Elinor hissed at Lucien in deference to the musician’s presence, as she disappeared again behind her screen.)
He obediently shut the machine again, and went and sat beside Sophie on the oak chest that supplemented the supply of chairs.
She turned and smiled at him, slipping her hand, unseen, into his.
“Isn’t it a lovely party?” Sophie murmured under her breath, her eyes shining with laughter and happiness.
Lucien held her fingers closer for an instant.
“The Treacle Well. There could only be one,” he whispered, with intense conviction.
“Never have I known a more successful evening,” said Miss Fish. “It’s midnight, and they’ve only just gone!”
The last of the guests were, in fact, no further than the garden path, and as the door of the studio was wide open, it seemed to Olivia more than probable that the eminently carrying voice of their triumphant hostess had reached them. But she thought: “I can’t always be a prig, and Elinor really has been splendid to-night,” and refrained from shutting the door.
The Princesse, who had refused Harry King’s offer to drive her up the hill again, walked slowly up the lane with Radow and Cliffe Montgomery.
The night was clear and full of stars.
“It is extraordinary,” said the Princesse, “that I remember nothing of this lane. Yet I must have walked here as a little girl. I only remember the little wood where I picked primroses. Well, I am glad to have seen it all again.”
“Yeh. A nice place. And all the people are nice. Not like,” said Radow with a slight, reminiscent shudder, “at Mardale. That was a terrible house, with terrible people.”
“It won’t be terrible when Sophie and Lucien are there, and their children.”
“No, perhaps not then. It is Fitzmaurice and his wife and their friends that make any place abominable. But especially her. Why, in all these years, has not Fitzmaurice strangled his wife?”
Neither Cliffe nor the Princesse making any answer to Radow’s rhetorical inquiry, he presently replied to it himself.
“I suppose, because of the money.”
They reached Miss Silver’s house, standing friendly and pleasant in the moonlight.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 342