The Disturbing Charm

by Berta Ruck

  CHAPTER XV

  THE LOSING OF THE CHARM

  "Farewell, thou latter Spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer!"

  Shakespeare.

  "It's perfectly easy to have a good time in this world without any men,"declared Mrs. Cartwright, smiling. "In fact, as easy as it is with them.In many ways, easier!"

  Her listeners looked at her without conviction. For they were Miss Walshand Olwen Howel-Jones. Poor Miss Walsh, having passed thirty-four yearsof her life in a manless world, having been then caught up into aParadise for two, and, further, having been banished from it again withthe departure of her Gustave, felt that nothing could be more untruethan this remark of the writer's.

  As for Olwen--well, this was on the morning after her Uncle had sprungupon her the news that all _her_ "good time" was to end in two days'time. And one whole precious day of that remaining two was to be wasted;_wasted_!

  A somewhat mysterious message had come from Bordeaux, asking all threeof the British officers then sojourning at Les Pins to go over and spendthe day with their comrades-in-arms at a base about which none of thesesoldiers would answer any questions. They had gone, all three of them;Captain Ross, Mr. Awdas, and little Mr. Brown. They wouldn't be backall day. Not all day would Olwen have a glimpse of him whom presentlyshe might never be seeing at all--and still Mrs. Cartwright affirmedthat it would be possible to have a good time!

  Probably Mrs. Cartwright guessed at the young girl's frame of mind aseasily as at the less disguised feelings of Sergeant Tronchet'sbetrothed; it had not been for long that the writer had wondered "Whothat child's so desperately in love with?" But brooding was a thing thatClaudia Cartwright considered a wasteful and useless proceeding on thepart of any young girl. She determined to put a stop to it, if possible,and that was why she went on gaily, "I often think of how Eve would havegot on if she had been made first; probably she'd have thoroughlyenjoyed having the whole of that Garden to herself, whereas Adam----!Bored to tears, of course. Not good for man to be alone.... Well, sinceall the men have gone from here, why shouldn't we have a party of ourown?"

  "A party!" echoed Miss Walsh, lugubriously. "Oh, Mrs. Cartwright!"

  "Why not? I am sure Sergeant Gustave doesn't want you to shut yourselfup because he's gone back to the front; come and see something to putinto your lovely long letters to him. And since those other three youngmen have gone off on a stag party to Bordeaux, we'll organize a dovelunch, as the American girls call it, and go off to Cap Ferret. It'sperfectly lovely there. Olwen, where's the Professor? I'm going to begleave for you. Come along, Miss Walsh----"

  There was about Mrs. Cartwright that day an almost schoolgirlish flow ofvitality that the other two found it impossible to resist; their ownbeing at a low ebb, they let themselves drift with the current of hers.The corners of Miss Walsh's mouth ceased to turn quite so definitelydownward, and the clouds in Olwen's bright eyes seemed about todisperse. In half an hour they were all ready, and setting out for thistrip to Cap Ferret, which lay beyond the _Baissin_, the dunes, and thelighthouse.

  In the bright autumn sunlight the little motor-boat buzzed with themacross the lagoon that had set such a fairy scene, that night.... Butthere was a gay wind blowing now, sending the big white clouds rollingacross the sky in towering columns like those of the Biscay waves, seenfrom afar.

  "We'll go right down to Biscay, after lunch," planned Mrs. Cartwright,as they landed at the small iron pier above the oyster parks. Then sheguided them through the belt of pine woods that lay between the twoborders of sandhills, past the lighthouse which they saw every day as awarning finger, but with which they now made acquaintance as the hugetower it was; she led them to the inn where they were to lunch. This wasa long white building, its corners rounded and scoured by the flyingsands borne on the gales of winter.

  "Outside is the best dining-room," said Mrs. Cartwright. "I daresayMadame will think us mad--but it's an Indian summer day today. TheProfessor told me that you Welsh people call it '_the little summer ofthe Angels_.' Come along!"

  And having given her order to the smiling French landlady (who wore ablack shawl, a bright blue apron, and a brighter blue glass comb in herblack hair), she led the others to a table in the sunny yard, under thewooden veranda. Its green paint had flaked off beneath those noisygales, but the latticework was over-grown with passion-flower vines andother vines, richly clustered with bunches of sweet white grapes.

  "Our dessert," said Mrs. Cartwright, nodding towards the fruit. "Madamewill come and cut the bunches while we are eating the Biscay sole."

  Lunch was brought; before she began upon the sole Mrs. Cartwright threwoff the loose brown coat that she had worn for the crossing in themotor-boat, and appeared in a frock that Olwen had never seen before.Yesterday, the girl had noticed, a carton-box had arrived for the writerat the hotel; doubtless this was the dress that it had contained....

  It was of rough sky-blue crepy stuff with touches of creamy edging andof dull pink stitchery, very simple, for all Mrs. Cartwright's clotheswere simply cut. This was something more than simple, though, almost ...trivial, was it? A frock for a more insignificant person? Olwen couldnot have told you why she shouldn't quite like that frock. It wasn'taltogether that it seemed too young; and it did fit her, perfectly.Perhaps the fact that Olwen noticed it at all showed how well the elderwoman's clothes generally did suit her.

  Today--not only her frock was different, but her mood was different. Itpuzzled little Olwen entirely....

  As the sole and the potatoes in their jackets gave place to anadmirably-cooked ham omelette, Mrs. Cartwright was saying almostaudacious things, that passed as swiftly as the shadows of the gullsswooped over the sands. And she seemed conscious that she was "beingdifferent...." Why? It was almost as though she were playing at somegame; she thought feverishly. As if half of her sat apart, watching theplay, criticizing, exchanging notes with people who were not Miss Walsh,not Olwen.

  The girl, having never before looked upon her friend as a riddle, satwondering at her.... In that sheltered corner the savoury scents of themeal mingled with the inevitable pine scent and the tang of sea whilethe sun flung blue shadows upon the bright table and the plates; dancingdelicate silhouettes of vine leaves and tendrils and passion flowers.There drifted to them from the woods the sound of the cow bells;"tonkle--tankle--tonkle--" and from the shore the distant roar ofbreakers.

  Suddenly, as the inn servant removed and brought coffee, Mrs. Cartwrightbroke out, apparently a propos of nothing.

  "Ah, well!

  "'Better an omelette _aux fines herbes_ where Love is, than the Carlton and a chaperon therewith.'

  Forgive my quoting my own works, but I was thinking of one of thosebooks of mine that I--that we never write. Plenty of other things inLife like that. Men we didn't marry, their babies that we've neverhad----"

  Then she laughed.

  "I wonder what people would have thought if I'd ever written that book.It's the one I threatened your friend Captain Ross with, Olwen, theother night. Would you like to hear a bit of it, girls?"

  And without waiting to hear whether they would or not, she went on inthat deep, whimsical attractive voice of hers:

  "'Don't tell your mother beforehand that I am a lady. Possibly I'm not. You won't know. But she will.'

  I remember thinking of that when a great friend of mine in the navy toldme about his engagement. He made a joke at the time about sailors andtheir _culte_ for _mesalliances_.... Here's another bit:

  "'Always write to me when you're away. Never mind if you've nothing to say. It doesn't matter if you don't say anything. Only write!'

  I can see the young man now that I said that to," said Mrs. Cartwright,and the expression in her eyes was of one who looks down from a hill-topupon the landmarks passed, far back. "He'd only been married a month toa school chum of mine, and was suddenly ordered off. He couldn't takeher. I told him that even if the mail only went out twice a week therewas no reason that it should not
take three letters each time----"

  Here Miss Walsh, who did not seem to be listening, broke in. "I thinkthat's very true." She fingered in her bag an envelope with the printedlabel, "Controle Postale Militaire," and looked cheered.

  "This young man numbered his letters after that. Then I remember a girlfriend--ah! she's a grand-mamma now--married before I did. I rememberher once saying something that I should have stolen from her.

  "'Do you mind not giving me these useful solid, durable presents of leather, which you men love and which are hideous in our eyes? Why not something charming that won't last; scent, powder, or chocolates in a pretty box?'

  And this, which is the last that I shall inflict upon you, dear yawners,nobody at all told me. I made it up, unaided, and by my little self."She looked away above her coffee-cup as she quoted it, and her eyes werethe eyes of all the girls that be, appealing to all the plighted lovers:

  "'Remember that nine out of ten women in the world will never know what Love can be, and that _six out of those nine are married women_. Please won't you try to make me the happy Tenth?'

  And now, when all the people have said Amen, what about a walk down toBiscay?----No, Miss Walsh! Please. This is my _day_. I proposed this,and I know you won't grudge me this little pleasure."

  She paid the _addition_ and drew on her loose white gloves.

  Through the woods they went, and over the sandhills planted with grassin lines to keep that barrier together.

  Olwen, in her red woolly coat, walked between Mrs. Cartwright, whoseshort blue skirts flapped like a wind-blown succory flower above herankles, and Miss Walsh, who was holding on to her hat. Little Olwenthought irrelevantly--"and, fancy! we're all three wearing that Charm!"

  They descended from the dunes, passed the loose shuffling upper sands,and came on to the stretch of other sands, smooth, hard, and firm as aballroom floor set down in the widest landscape that any of them hadtrodden yet. Soaring skies, illimitable beach, and oh, how empty seemedthe sea far, far behind the breakers of Biscay Bay!

  At the sight of those breakers, whose sound had been growing in herears, Olwen gave an involuntary "Oh! _Look_ at them!"

  From the hotel windows they seemed nothing more than a crawling whiteline. Here they were rushing monsters that seemed to shake the shorewhere they broke. They broke and spouted not more than fifty yards away,then swirled and seethed almost to the feet of the women in surf, in thelines that would be taken by boiling milk.

  Olwen stood nearest with spray on her cheeks, thunder in her ears, and astorm of unimagined whiteness before her eyes, finding it all riotouslybeautiful. But the last thing in the world that she expected was whatMrs. Cartwright then said:

  "I say! Let's bathe. It would be too gorgeous in there!"

  Miss Walsh, behind her, looked as if she could not believe her ears.

  "In _October_, dear Mrs. Cartwright?"

  Dear Mrs. Cartwright laughed as she threw out her arm towards thewaters, soaring to crash, soaring again to crash.... "_That_," shecried, "was going on before the months had names!"

  "Oh, but I never knew any one dreamed of bathing after August," murmuredMiss Walsh, still clutching her hat, "and, besides!" (as if thatsettled it), "you haven't brought your things with you."

  "That's just what I meant," declared Mrs. Cartwright, taking a deepbreath. "I'm going in."

  "Oh, please don't!" protested Olwen. "I can swim quite well, but any onecan see _that's_ dangerous. Supposing you were caught in and swept away.Oh, I wouldn't."

  "I shouldn't dream of letting you, child," cried Mrs. Cartwright gaily."I'm going in," and she stooped to unlace the brown thongs of hersandalettes.

  "Oh! I'll go on and gather shells, then," said Agatha Walsh (hurriedlyturning her back as if she dreaded to let her eyes fall upon somerepellent sight, reflected Mrs. Cartwright, with amusement).

  The elder woman was of the type that, under such circumstances, makes nomore ado about getting out of her clothes than she would about takingoff her hat. She was of that type--and of that build.

  They dropped from about her, the flapper's frock of succory blue and thesilken under-garments, and with them she seemed to cast off as well thatrather feverish sprightliness of the last hour. It was a genuinelygirlish delight that shone from her eyes as she ran, lightly andfree-limbed, over the sand and into the surf that flung itself towardsher body of a slender statue, white as those crests. She revelled inthat hour that was hers, Claudia Cartwright's--hers and that girl's whohad been Claudia Crane's.

  "Not too far in!" warned Olwen from higher up the beach.

  "Right!" called her friend's voice from out of the dazzling sunlightspray; the sound of it lost in the crash of the breakers and the screamof the gulls that wheeled and dived like a flight of white-wingedaeroplanes above her.

  She sprang and dipped; threw herself forward, breasted the waves, andtried to swim, always frustrated by those tossing waters that made ofher a plaything, all panting and aglow with joyous life.

  Olwen watched; anxious. But Claudia Cartwright was not to be caught inand swept away; not she. It was something else that was to be so lost;unseen by Olwen, unthought about at all.

  From where the bather's garments lay in a soft heap under a smooth heavystone that she had set down to keep them from blowing away, theredisentangled itself a ribbon that she had worn about her neck and thatshe had untied, carelessly, just before she ran down to plunge into thesea.

  It blew along the sands above the scatter of shells.

  It blew along, fast and faster, the pink thread holding thatfeather-light Charm that the wind had swept away.