Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Kate obeyed, and then she had her own tea. The hands of the Dresden china clock pointed to five.

  “Mr. Newton.”

  Cousin Joe walked in, punctual as ever.

  Then there wasn’t any hope, and Kate felt sick. She’d been so certain that Lucy would come and that, if she saw him and talked to him, it would, as Rosalie had said, make everything better.

  Cousin Joe was offered tea — accepted a cup — and sat, with his knees very far apart, balancing it while he talked, in his spasmodic, monosyllabic way, about a forthcoming Flower Show, and his brother Johnny in Barbados, and Fred’s arrival. The only thing that made any impression at all on Kate’s mind was a phrase that she had often heard him use before.

  “Funny thing, to think that old Johnny and I used to be like twins, as youngsters — always called the Inseparables. Don’t suppose we’d know one another now if we met in the street. Always seems to me a funny thing.”

  To Kate it didn’t seem funny at all but dreadful. Was that the kind of thing that happened, and did one, grown old, not mind at all but just think it funny?

  “Wake up, Kate. You’ve got the stares,” said her mother briskly.

  “Kate and I must be getting along,” said Cousin Joe. “Where are your love-birds, eh? Master Lucy is a lucky fellow is what I say.”

  “Here they come now, I think. I can hear them. Kate, run along and get your things.”

  Kate went out into the hall.

  She could hear the horses outside. Some unaccountable impulse caused her to look out of the narrow slit of window on one side of the open hall door, and she saw Lucy helping Rosalie off her horse.

  He was holding her hand and looking down at her and Rosalie was leaning against the horse, her face raised to his.

  They remained so, motionless and unhurried, and although Kate could hear nothing she saw that they were talking, just as though they hadn’t been together all the afternoon.

  Furious jealousy overwhelmed her and she turned and dashed up the stairs.

  Trembling, and too angry to cry, she pinned on her hat before the glass and caught up her coat and gloves.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in!” cried Kate harshly.

  It was, as she had half expected, Rosalie.

  “I’m so glad you haven’t started yet!” she cried breathlessly. “We meant to be back ages ago — I was so dreadfully afraid we’d be too late!”

  Her pleading gaze sought Kate’s anxiously as though she felt afraid of being doubted and she put out her hand in a tentative caress.

  “Lucy is waiting for you downstairs and I simply rushed up to find you,” said Rosalie.

  But Kate, who had seen her lingering at the hall door, knew that Rosalie only said that to comfort her, and to make her believe that they had remembered her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said dully.

  “Yes it does, darling. You needn’t start just this minute, need you? Lucy will be so disappointed.”

  “It’s all right,” said Kate.

  They went down together.

  Cousin Joe was in the hall with Lucy. Kate looked only at her brother.

  She saw him raise his eyes as she and Rosalie came down the stairs, and seek Rosalie’s.

  “ I’m ready, Cousin Joe,” said Kate.

  Chapter V

  1

  Fred Lemprière remained in London for a week before he came down to The Grove with Cecilia.

  Rosalie was at St. Brinvels again with her parents, and Lucy at home.

  The resemblance between the brothers was a curious thing, for Fred was Lucy cast in a larger, clumsier mould. Only his eyes were black instead of hazel, and his heavy moustache and thick crop of hair were of such density as to make Lucy’s lesser growth seem only dark-brown by comparison. His height was six feet four, and seemed greater from the heaviness of his shoulders and thighs, and his slightly straddling gait, as though he were unaccustomed to finding himself out of the saddle.

  Fred actually resembled his sister Fanny in slow-wittedness and absence of subtlety, but his size, his heavy style of good looks and the musical facility inherited from, and cultivated by, his mother, caused this to pass quite unnoticed by many men and all women — for Fred was attractive to women.

  Women in the first place, and horses in the second, formed his major interests.

  He could master either, as and when he wished, with the minimum possible amount of exertion to himself, and Fred had all the indolence of his Creole ancestry.

  He was fond of his mother and her idolatry of him amused rather than oppressed him.

  Such as his powers of affection were, he expended them upon his brother, but he was capable of a lazy, good-natured fondness for every member of his family, whereas he had never formed any outside friendship at all so far as anybody knew.

  He told Cecilia within twenty-four hours of his return that the Barbados estates were doing badly.

  “It’s lucky we don’t depend on them,” calmly said Cecilia. She was resolved, as she had been subconsciously resolved all along, that The Grove should somehow belong to Fred. Meanwhile it was hers for her lifetime — and Cecilia, like most ego-centric people, was incapable of really envisaging a time when her dependants would still be living, but she herself would no longer be in the world, directing and controlling their destinies.

  She hoped that, if he would give up the Bridgetown estate, she might one day keep Fred with her, nominally master of The Grove, that Lucy and Rosalie would ensure the continuance of the Lempriére family, and Kate be disposed of in marriage in the same way that Providence — for Cecilia had, she admitted freely, made no effort whatever in the matter — had disposed of Fanny.

  That the lives of her descendants should shape themselves in the ways that suited Cecilia seemed to her to be for their highest advantage.

  2

  Fred and Rosalie, who were to be made known to one another two days following Fred’s arrival at a formal tea-party, actually met by accident the day before.

  John Meredith, driving over to Tintern, took his daughter with him and left her at the lodge-gates, as in the days when he had laughed at her for her eagerness to obtain an hour’s chatter with Kate.

  “You can walk up to the house and surprise your young man,” he told her benevolently.

  Rosalie, who was always more at her ease with her father than with her mother, laughed in return.

  “Being engaged is like being given a licence for flirtation, with everybody aiding and abetting you instead of getting in your way,” she remarked. She felt happy, because she was going to see Lucy, with whom she was in love and who adored her, and because she knew that her unexpected appearance would enchant him, and because she was young and attractive and beloved.

  Her thoughts did not dwell very much on the future. She was essentially of the type that lives for and in the present, and what she felt at the moment she expressed with a sincerity that carried conviction not only to others, but to herself.

  Very far down below the level of consciousness, Rosalie’s innermost being knew that although she was in love with Lucy, she was afraid to envisage a life in which each would depend upon the other for companionship.

  Lucy’s passion could awake full response in her, but with the curious realism that made Rosalie an intelligent creature instead of merely a very highly-sexed woman, she understood that he would make upon her emotional and imaginative demands to which she might prove inadequate.

  She loved him — but not as he loved her. Only the exigencies of her day, her surroundings and her own inability willingly to hurt where she loved, were driving Rosalie into the permanence of marriage.

  By nature she was the ideal courtesan.

  Wandering slowly up the sunny slope of the avenue, Rosalie thought only of the moment when Lucy would realize her arrival. He would certainly not start, or exclaim, but his queer, light eyes would suddenly flame in his dark face and the look that would flash into them would be, i
n itself, an embrace.

  Her heart beat faster at the thought.

  Suddenly, from the stable-yard at the bottom of the drive, she heard his voice — shouting.

  “Look out, you fool!”

  There was the sound of a splintering crash, a horse’s high whinny, and the pounding of flying hooves.

  Rosalie saw Lucy’s Canadian buggy, dragged by a galloping horse, lurch insanely round the corner of the stable-yard and splinter against the stone gatepost. The next instant, with trailing reins, the wreck, dragged at the heels of a frightened, semi-harnessed horse, had clattered out into the lane.

  From the yard came running the coachman and the boy Tim.

  “Over the wall, and cut him off at the corner!” shouted Lucy’s voice again.

  She saw the tall figure in grey follow the other two, and instinctively she sprang to join him.

  The low stone wall outside the gate gave onto a steep slope of uncultivated land that rejoined the high road, where it curved to meet the lane.

  Tim, the stable-boy, was over it in a flash and dashing down the slope, ponderously followed by the coachman Reynolds.

  “Lucy!” cried Rosalie.

  He turned, remarkably unhurried.

  “It’s all right. They’ll head him off at the bend in the lane.”

  Rosalie’s head swam.

  It was not Lucy — but a taller, heavier man, of more gigantic build, and deeper, more pronounced drawl.

  They stared at one another in absolute speechlessness. It was a shout from below that broke the silence.

  “All right, sir! Got him.”

  “Dam’ fool. Sorry. But that young ass of a boy kicked over a bucket, startled the horse, and he went off like a rocket. Did it frighten you?”

  “No,” lied Rosalie, smiling.

  She didn’t want him to think she had been afraid.

  “You’re plucky. It was enough to frighten any woman.”

  He came two steps towards her and Rosalie, to her amazement, felt her eyes filling with tears.

  “Oh!” she murmured.

  She was suddenly weak and unnerved.

  “It’s all right.”

  “I know it is.”

  She smiled with a quivering mouth, her eyes swimming.

  “I’m so sorry,” she heard herself say, foolishly and without meaning.” I’m so sorry. I thought it was Lucy.”

  “I’m Fred Lemprière. You’re Rosalie?”

  At the sound of her name, spoken in Lucy’s voice, her heart seemed to turn over in her breast as it had never turned at Lucy’s own speaking.

  “Yes,” she said faintly.

  Fred stared at her for an instant, then put his arm round her waist, steadying her.

  “Are you going to faint?”

  “Oh no. I’m all right. I was startled, that’s all.”

  They continued to gaze at one another, as though fascinated. Then Fred said bluntly: “God, Lucy’s got luck!”

  Rosalie, her head still reeling, was not even certain that she had really heard the words. It seemed impossible that he should have spoken them.

  She made no effort to disengage herself from his arm or to move her eyes from his face. It was Fred himself who released her — but deliberately, not at all as though afraid of being seen — as the fat coachman came panting into the yard again.

  “Tim’s got him, sir. The horse is all right. But I’m afraid he’s smashed the buggy up. Caught the gate-post as he went off, sir, otherwise there’d have been no harm done.”

  “You’ll hear what Mr. Lucy has to say about the buggy. And I’ve no doubt Tim’ll hear what you’ve got to say about him.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Miss Meredith might easily have been hurt, and as it is she’s been very much frightened.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Can I fetch a glass of water for the young lady?”

  “No, please,” begged Rosalie. “I’m quite all right. Truly.”

  “I’ll take you up to the house,” Fred said. He turned on his heel, paying no attention to the coachman’s reiterated apologies.

  “Don’t you want to have a look at the poor horse?”

  “I’ll come back later.”

  They walked slowly up the drive, Rosalie’s knees shaking oddly.

  “Where did you and Lucy meet?”

  “Here. I mean, I used to come and see Kate — and then he came home. And — and we got engaged.”

  “Lucy’s the best fellow in the world,” said Fred heavily. “There’s nobody like old Lucy. I was glad when I heard he was going to marry a nice girl.”

  “A nice girl!” repeated Rosalie, feeling a curious compulsion on her to lighten the conversation by giving it a tone of flippancy. “I’m not at all sure I like the description. Who told you I was a nice girl?”

  “They all did — Mother, and old Joe Newton, and sister Fanny and her husband, and the little kid — Kate. But you’re something quite different. You’re — you’re — —”

  “What?” She said it, not coquettishly, but with a kind of grave urgency — really wanting to know what he thought.

  “Beautiful, I suppose. And only half awake. Are you really in love with old Lucy?”

  Rosalie nodded.

  She felt no resentment at being asked such a question.

  “I wish I’d come home three months ago and met you first,” said Fred.

  With an effort like that of a heavy sleeper trying to wake, Rosalie forced herself to an expression of resentment.

  “Would you mind not saying things like that to me? You haven’t any business to, and anyway they aren’t true.”

  “They’re true enough, and you know it. But I daresay I haven’t any business to say them. Lucy and I always did like the same things, from the time we were youngsters.”

  Fred stopped, and grinned.

  “It was usually I who got them,” he said.

  “It won’t be this time.”

  “Don’t be too sure.”

  They had almost reached the house, and Rosalie made another effort — one equally conscious, and almost as difficult to make as the one that had led her to rebuke him a moment earlier.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you from your mother and — and Kate,” she said, reluctant to name Lucy again,” and you see, I’ve never had any sisters or brothers of my own. So I’m very glad to be coming into a family.”

  Fred turned and gave her a peculiar look, compounded, as it seemed, of resentment, admiration and undisguised incredulity.

  There was no vestige of the kindness or the gentle irony that so often illumined Lucy’s look — but it thrilled through her as no look of Lucy’s had ever done.

  3

  The wedding of Lucy and Rosalie was to take place on the sixteenth of September, and it was now the middle of August.

  “It’s an impossible time to go to London and shop,” said Mrs. Meredith,” but what else can we do?”

  They could do nothing else, for the ordering and trying-on of those items of Rosalie’s trousseau that were beyond the skill of the Newport shops.

  Mrs. Troyle commanded, rather than invited, her sister and her niece to come and stay with her, even if it were only for a week.

  Rosalie protested that she didn’t want money that her parents could ill afford to be spent upon her wedding preparations.

  “Nonsense,” said Mrs. Troyle. “And in any case, your wedding dress must be made in London. You owe it to your husband.”

  Rosalie did not dispute the point. She felt she would be wiser to get away and go to London.

  Ever since their first meeting she had avoided being alone with Fred because she was afraid of what he might say or do, but she was always intensely conscious of his presence whenever he was anywhere near her, and she believed that he was equally conscious of hers. Sometimes Rosalie thought that she hated and despised Fred.

  The times when she felt most nearly natural with him were those when he was at the piano. He played skilfully, and even artistically, w
ith a flawless feeling for rhythm although his choice of compositions was usually commonplace.

  He sang, too, in an unexpectedly light tenor voice.

  One music-hall refrain was his special favourite, and Rosalie often found herself humming the cheap, catch-penny air of which she never could remember any of the words excepting the last line or two:

  Boy and girl together, me and Maimie O’Rorke

  Tripped the light fantastic

  On the side-walks of New York.

  It always brought Fred vividly before her mind’s eye, sitting at his mother’s grand piano in the long, light drawing-room of The Grove, his black eyes fixed unwaveringly on her own face, a half-smile visible under his thick, dark moustache.

  Cecilia’s monopoly of her elder son made it easy for Rosalie to see comparatively little of him, and most of her own time was spent with Lucy.

  She was not staying at The Grove any more now, and when Kate returned from her visit to the Newtons and Lucy suggested that Rosalie should come back for a few days, she refused.

  “I’ve only got such a very little while left at home.”

  “What a conventional reason. I’m certain it isn’t the real one. Are you afraid of Kate’s behaving like a little goose? Because she won’t.”

  “No, I know she won’t. Is she happier?”

  “She’s much better behaved, which is a relief to everybody. Tell me why you won’t come, my sweet. We should get more time together.”

  “We shall soon be together all the time,” murmured Rosalie.

  It was so instinctive with her to say and do the thing that intuition told her was the thing desired, that as she spoke she raised her eyes, smiling into his, making the words carry conviction to herself as well as to him.

  Lucy took her face very gently between his hands and looked at her.

  “Darling, darling Rosalie. Do you know that you’ll never love me as much as I love you?”

  “Wait and see.”

  Lucy shook his head. He was smiling, but there was pain in his eyes.

  “I’ll put up with that. I shall have to. But swear to me that you’ll never love anyone else better.”

  “I shall swear it at our wedding.”

  “So you will. What a fool I am! As if all the swearing in the world could make one love or not love. You’ll be as faithful to me as you want to be — neither more, nor less.”