The Disturbing Charm

by Berta Ruck

  CHAPTER VIII

  RATIONS AND THE CHARM

  "A dinner of herbs where Love is."

  Proverbs.

  "If there is one thing that bores a man," gave out Captain Ross, in avoice like the clashing together of Tube lift-gates--a tone that he hadadopted all that evening, since nothing seemed to be going right, "ifthere is one thing that bores a man stiff, it's when some woman startsin to '_Love_' him."

  He paused to glance across the table at Olwen, gaily chattering with Mr.Ellerton.

  "It don't matter what woman," pursued the young Staff-officerinexorably. "_Any_ woman. If he's keen before, that chokes him dead off.He's not out for any of this Love-with-a-capital-L business that womenare such nuts on. Once he's done the chasing, he's gotten all he wantsout of it, I guess. Man's a hunter, Mrs. Cartwright."

  "I know," cooed his hostess. Inwardly she exclaimed, "Dear Ass!... Butis he going on like this for the whole of my party?"

  Up to then Captain Ross had only spoken to her and to the other youngScotsman whom he had brought with him. At Olwen he had simply glowered.At Miss van Huysen on the other side he had not looked.

  "What's Love?" he continued, still to Mrs. Cartwright. "It's anamusement. That's what it ought to be. An Episode. It's the Women whoinsist on spoiling it; taking it seriously. Nothing in this world isworth taking seriously; barring a man's job.... What's woman? ThePlaything of Man. And what's Marriage?"

  It was, as he pronounced it, a word of one syllable.

  "Marriage," he answered his own question, "is an idea that the sensibleman looks at from every angle, and then cuts right out until he can'tfind anything better to do. If he is really a sensible man, heinvariably can find it."

  "Ah," uttered Mrs. Cartwright with the little appreciative laugh of onewho hears for the first time an original thought brilliantly phrased.

  But she wanted to be soothing; she was fond of Captain Ross. One doesnot sob out one's weakness on a man's shoulder once and think of him asa stranger thereafter. She had asked him to forget. She never forgot....

  A pity he'd come in this absurd mood, she thought.

  Her party, at her flat in Westminster, had arrived at the stage of thefeast when tongues were loosed and the young guests were gossiping andchirruping in merry twos and threes.

  Little Mr. Brown was beamingly loquacious in spite of the absence of hiskhakied _fiancee_, kept out of town that evening on late duty. BetweenMr. Brown and the fresh-faced naval boy, Mr. Ellerton sat little OlwenHowel-Jones, enjoying herself without disguise and looking her verybest. She was a girl who had "days"; this was one of them. Never had herglossy black hair "gone up" so well, or her face lighted up so vividly;never, against her pale skin, had her laughing mouth bloomed in such acarnation-red. Never had any dress suited her so well as that flapper'sfrock of succory-blue with touches of cream, and dull pink. It was thefrock Mrs. Cartwright had worn once on Biscay beach; she had pressed itupon Olwen as she said good-bye at Les Pins, telling her it was a younggirl's colour after all. There Olwen sat in it now, laughing and beingtalked to by two young men at once and looking a picture in it....

  It was from this picture that Captain Ross's dark eyes looked sopertinaciously away, as with new sardonic energy he informed Mrs.Cartwright that by the time a man had learnt to handle women he'd learntthat their place in his life was not all that important that he wantedto handle them at all.

  Mrs. Cartwright passed him the Sauterne.

  "Thank goodness that there is at least enough to _drink_," she reflectedwith a quick whimsical glance about the well-cleared dishes on hersupper-table that had held:

  1. Remains of chicken, with an intolerable deal of rice and curry to a very little fowl.

  2. Allotment potatoes.

  3. A pound of Normandy butter bought that morning in Boulogne and brought over in Sergeant Tronchet's haversack.

  4. Pease-pudding.

  5. Beetroot....

  6. Green salad.

  Well, they'd seemed to enjoy what there was.

  "Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright, here catching a remark from over thetable. "A penny from _you_, Mr. Brown!" And she pushed over to him amoney-box with the Blue Cross upon it, known as "The Fine-box."

  This claimed a penny from whomsoever entering Mrs. Cartwright's abodeshould make any allusion to a subject which she declared was nowinadmissibly boring: namely, food. One met quite intelligent people whobecame hopelessly tedious about "recipes," "how they managed," and soon. Rations had to be; and catering, food-cards, and substitute foods.But why intensify the Unspeakable by unnecessary speaking about it?Hence this box.

  She took Mr. Brown's penny (a fine for some cheese anecdote or other),rattled the box, and glanced, as usual without seeming to do so, at herother guests.

  Next to young Ellerton sat a niece of her own; a pretty girl in grey andscarlet nursing kit; the red- and blue _artilleriste_ uniform of GustaveTronchet next; delighting the eyes of his _fiancee_ opposite.

  Agatha Walsh had taken off years, Mrs. Cartwright thought, since theyhad parted at Les Pins. In place of the "old-maid" look, she wasacquiring that of the young and prosperous woman--her smile seeming notyet entirely her own, and she had a new gesture or two modelled on thoseof Madame Leroux, her aunt-to-be. Also, her speech was altered. Some onemust have rallied her on her "English" habit of beginning every sentencewith "Oh"----Mrs. Cartwright missed it as she caught fragments of MissWalsh's talk to Jack Awdas, who sat on her left.

  "Now could _you_ tell me, Mr. Awdas, the really best sort of man's wristwatch?... I want to get a really _special_ one for Gustave--it is his'_fete_' on Thursday ... not time to engrave anything, I'm afraid....Ah, yes, if you could come with me on Monday, you and Miss van Huysen,to help choose! That would be so amiable of you--nice, I mean. Sostupid of me. I _keep_ putting in the French words for things always,now!

  "Ah, a bracelet-watch like yours, that would be perfect....

  "Was there a _cadeau de fiancailles_--let's see, what do you call it inEnglish, an engagement present?"

  And she put her carefully dressed head on one side as she inspected thewatch that Jack Awdas, smiling, held out towards her. Jack was silentthis evening, Mrs. Cartwright had noticed already, as she noticed everydetail, still, of the young flyer's looks and manner.... He was in somehappy abstraction, she saw, worlds away from the brightly-lighted tablethronged with these young people chattering over their grapes andoranges....

  There was a light behind those horizon-blue eyes of his even when theywere not turned upon the sweetheart at his other side. There was anundernote of something new and joyous in the tone of his voice as hespoke to her.

  ("What _d'you_ think about it, girl?")

  From the Sunburst Girl, as ever, a radiance seemed to emanate that wasmore than the effulgence of her white-and-golden dress. But she, too,was quieter than usual as she sat; now giving a little friendly smile toher hostess across Captain Ross and his dogmas, now leaning to the rightand putting in a word about the matter of the engagement present.

  ("But, Bird-boy, if Miss Walsh _wants_ it in platinum----!")

  Now turning her wide eyes affectionately upon the girl friend oppositeto her. Olwen was not flirting with the young sailor who talked so muchand had so little to say beyond his "Bai Joves" and "Ha's"; she was onlyblooming in what Mr. Brown had already called "the sunshine of hissmile"; she was also caught in and made beautiful by some of thathappiness that flowed in a current about the table under the pinkinverted parasol of lights, flowed from Golden and her Jack....

  Golden and Jack.... What pretty lover's secrets was between them now?

  Still watching them covertly, Mrs. Cartwright could only wonder why,since it was possible for young human beings to be grown so big andbeautiful--why in the name of a thousand pities did Nature turn out somany samples of the stunted, the plain, the commonplace? Must thiswell-matched pair stand for the exception rather than the rule? Shewatched them, and that scene of physical per
fection which had so nearlybrought Claudia Cartwright to shipwreck over a boy-lover was no longerher torment, but her comfort.

  She had wept all her tears; she had tossed sleeplessly through all herhours of fierce rebellion; she had gone through the most agonizingordeal of her woman's life. But thank God it was over now....

  It was over! and her eyes travelled now to that which is a woman's onlybalm for such wounds as hers had been.

  He sat, the master of the house, with a school-fellow between himselfand Agatha Walsh. This school-fellow was sixteen, a year older but threeinches shorter than young Keith Cartwright. Keith was already well oversix foot. Coltish at present, with great wrists shooting ever tooquickly beyond his cuffs, and feet that seemed four sizes too large forhis ankles, but wait until he began to fill out! thought Claudiaproudly. Her rightness of bone, her limbs, her suppleness had gone toher boys; Reggie, on a visit in the country, was just as good, but itwas her elder son who seemed the child of her soul as well as of herbody. He had her tastes, her impatiences. Her own ardour would presentlybe breaking into flame in his heart. She felt (as even the mute-birdmothers feel) that she at least would not fail to understand him. Shesmiled across the table into his face, pink and free of care, with itsclear eyes, thick lashes (those were from his father's side), and thefruit-like, perfect oval that does not outlast twenty-five. She, themother, faded; but she had set in these young plants and they werebudding.

  Keith's voice (or rather voices, for he himself never knew in whatoctave his words might break forth) came roughly but affectionatelyacross the table to his mother.

  "I say, mums! What about coffee----" so far in the bass, and now atreble squeak of "if you don't mind. Harrison says he's got to get backhome, and I wanted to put on these new records"--relapse into the bass,"for him first?... Rightoh...."

  They had coffee before they adjourned to the sitting-room. It was alow-ceilinged, soothing place with soft brown walls, low cushiony seats,a richly-glowing Persian rug, some brass, and a few pictures. Mrs.Cartwright's standing-desk at which she worked had been wheeled awayinto a corner near an old oak coffer. Its place was usurped by the tallstand of a gramophone. About this the young people clustered, talking"records" ...

  "I say, have you got that topping thing of George Graves's----?"

  "Not a talking one; Miss Walsh wanted something _pretty_----"

  "Well, what about 'The Naughty Sporty Girl,' Miss Olwen?"

  "Bai Jove, did you hear him in----?"

  "Heaps of room to dance, if----"

  "Look out, please," said Keith Cartwright, lugging at a heavy flatpacket; and presently he put on a loud "selection" from some revue.

  It was under cover of this music that Captain Ross who had been carryingon with his Scots friend a conversation that seemed to consist ofvariations on the letter R, suddenly left him in the middle of aquestion as to the "Pairrrrrrrrrrsonnel" at the Honeycomb, and came upto Awdas, who was making his way to a vacant place on the arm of thecouch whereon Golden was sitting.

  With some force, Captain Ross gripped him by the upper arm. In the toneof one who has been for hours storing up some accumulated grievance, hemuttered, "Say, Jack. I've got to have a word with you. _Now_," headded, peremptorily, "Come out here, will you?"