CHAPTER I
Mrs. Ackroyde had a pretty little house in Upper Grosvenor Street,but she spent a good deal of her time in a country house which she hadbought at Coombe close to London. She was always there from Saturday toMonday, when she was not paying visits or abroad, and Coombe Hall, asher place was called, was a rallying ground for members of the "oldguard." Invariably guests came down on the Sunday to lunch and tea.Bridge was the great attraction for some. For others there were lawntennis and golf. And often there was good music. For Mrs. Ackroyde wasan excellent musician as well as an ardent card-player.
Lady Sellingworth had occasionally been to Coombe Hall, but for severalyears now she had ceased from going there. She did not care to show herwhite hair and lined face in Mrs. Ackroyde's rooms, which were alwaysthronged with women she knew too well and with men who had ceased fromadmiring her. And she was no longer deeply interested in the gossip of aworld in which formerly she had been one of the ruling spirits. She was,therefore, rather surprised at receiving a note from Mrs. Ackroydesoon after her return from Geneva urging her to motor to Coombe on thefollowing Sunday for lunch.
"I suppose there will be the usual crowd," Mrs. Ackroyde wrote. "AndI've asked Alick Craven and two or three who don't often come. What doyou think of Beryl Van Tuyn's transformation into an heiress? I hearshe's come into over three million dollars. I suppose she'll be moreunconventional than ever now. Minnie Birchington met her just afterher father's death, in fact the very day his death was announced inthe papers. She'd just been to tea with a marvellously good-lookingman called something Arabian, who has taken a flat in Rose Tree Gardensopposite to Minnie's. Evidently this is the newest way of going intodeep mourning."
Lady Sellingworth hesitated for some time before answering this note.Probably, indeed almost certainly, she would have refused the invitationbut for the last three sentences about Beryl Van Tuyn. She did not wantto see the girl again, for she could not help hating her. She had,of course, sent a note of sympathy to Claridge's, and had received anaffectionate reply, which she had torn up and burnt after reading it.But she had not gone to tell her regret at this death to Beryl, andBeryl had expressed no wish to see her.
In her heart Lady Sellingworth hated humbug, and she knew, of course,that any pretence of real friendship between Beryl and her would behumbug in an acute form. She might in the future sometimes have topretend, but she was resolved not to rush upon insincerity. If Berylsought her out again she would play her part of friend gallantly toconceal her wounds. But she would certainly not seek out Beryl.
She had not seen Craven since her return to London. In spite ofher anger against him, which was complicated by a feeling of almostcontemptuous disgust, she longed to see him again. Each day, whenshe had sat in her drawing-room in the late afternoon and had heardMurgatroyd's heavy step outside and the opening of the door, her heartbeat fast, and she had thought, "Can it be he?" Each day, after thewords "Sir Seymour Portman!" her heart had sunk and she had felt bitterand weary.
And now came this invitation, putting it in her power to meet Cravenagain naturally. Should she go?
She read Dindie Ackroyde's note once more carefully, and a strangefeeling stung her. She had been angry with Beryl for being fond ofCraven. (For she had supposed a real fondness in Beryl.) Now she wasangry with Beryl for a totally different reason. It was evident to herthat Beryl was behaving badly to Craven. As she looked at the note inher hand she remembered a conversation in a box at the theatre. Arabian!That was the name of the man Dick Garstin was painting, or hadbeen painting. Dindie Ackroyde called him "Something Arabian." LadySellingworth's mind supplied the other name. It was Nicolas. Beryl haddescribed him as "a living bronze."
She had gone out to tea with him in a flat on the day her father'ssudden death had been announced in the papers. And yet she had pretendedthat she was hovering on the verge of love for Alick Craven. She hadeven implied that she was thinking of marrying him. Lady Sellingworthsaw Beryl as a treacherous lover, as well as an unkind friend and aheartless daughter, and suddenly her anger against Craven died in pity.She had believed for a little while that she hated him, but now shelonged to protect him from pain, to comfort him, to make him happy,as surely she had once made him happy, if only for an hour or two. Sheforgot her pride and her sense of injury in a sudden rush of feelingthat was new to her, that perhaps, really, had something of motherlinessin it. And she sat down quickly and wrote an acceptance to Mrs.Ackroyde.
When Sunday came she felt excited and eager, absurdly so for a womanof sixty. But her secret diffidence troubled her. She looked into hermirror and thought of the piercing eyes of the "old guard," of thosemerciless and horribly intelligent women who had marked with amazementher sudden collapse into old age ten years ago, who would mark with aperhaps even greater amazement this bizarre attempt at a partial returntowards what she had once been.
And what would Alick Craven think?
Nevertheless she put a little more red on her lips, called her maid, hadsomething done to her hair.
"It has been a great success!" said the little Frenchwoman. "Miladilooks wonderful to-day. Black and white is much better than unrelievedblack for miladi. And the _soupcon_ of blue on the hat and in theearrings of miladi lights up the whole personality. Miladi never did awiser thing than when she visited Switzerland."
"You think not, Cecile?"
"Indeed yes, miladi. There is no specialist even in Paris like MonsieurPaulus. And as to the Doctor Lavallois, he is a marvel. Every woman whois no longer a girl should go to him."
Lady Sellingworth picked up a big muff and went down to the motor,leaving Cecile smiling behind her. As she disappeared down the stairsCecile, who was on the bright side of thirty, with a smooth, clear skinand chestnut-coloured hair, pushed out her under-lip slowly and shookher head.
"_La vieillesse!_" she murmured. "_La vieillesse amoureuse! Quellehorreur!_"
Lady Sellingworth had never given the maid any confidence about hersecret reasons for doing this or that. But Cecile was a Parisian. Shefully understood the reason for their visit to Geneva. Miladi had fallenin love.
Lady Sellingworth's excitement increased as she drove towards Coombe.It was complicated by a feeling of shyness. To herself she said that shewas like an old debutante. She had been out of the world for so long,and now she was venturing once more among the merciless women of theworld that never rests from amusing itself, from watching the lives ofothers, from gossiping about them, from laughing at them. She had been aleader of this world until she had denied it, had shut herself away fromit. And now she was venturing back--because of a man. As she drove onswiftly through the wintry and dull-looking streets, streets thatseemed to grow meaner, more dingy, more joyless, as she drew near to theoutskirts of London, she looked back over the past. And she saw alwaysthe same reason for the important actions of her life. All of them hadbeen committed because of a man. And now, even at sixty--Presently shesaw by the look of the landscape that she was nearing Coombe, and shedrew a little mirror out of her muff and gazed into it anxiously.
"What will they say? What will he think? What will happen to me to-day?"
The car turned into a big gravel sweep between tall, red-brick walls,and drew up before Mrs. Ackroyde's door.
In the long drawing-room, with its four windows opening on to a terrace,from which Coombe Woods could be seen sunk in the misty winter, LadySellingworth found many cheerful people whom she knew. Mrs. Ackroydegave her blunt, but kindly, greeting, with her strange eyes, fierce andremote, yet notably honest, taking in at a glance the results of Geneva.Lady Wrackley was there in an astonishing black hat trimmed with birdof paradise plumes. Glancing about her while she still spoke to DindieAckroyde carelessly, Lady Sellingworth saw young Leving; Sir RobertSyng; the Duchess of Wellingborough, shaking her broad shoulders andtossing up her big chin as she laughed at some joke; Jennie Farringdon,with her puffy pale cheeks and parrot-like nose, talking to old HubertMostine, the man of innumerable weddings, funerals and charity fetes,
with his blinking eyelids and moustaches that drooped over a large andgossiping mouth; Magdalen Dearing, whose Mona Lisa smile had attractedthree generations of men, and who had managed to look sad and be riotousfor at least four decades; Francis Braybrooke, pulling at his beard;Mrs. Birchington; Lady Anne Smith, wiry, cock-nosed, brown, ugly, butsupremely smart and self-assured; Eve Colton, painted like a wall, andleaning, with an old hand blazing with jewels, on a stick with a jadehandle; Mrs. Dews, the witty actress, with her white, mobile face, andthe large irresponsible eyes which laughed at herself, the critics andthe world; Lord Alfred Craydon, thin, high church and political, wholoved pretty women but receded farther and farther from marriage asthe years spun by; and Lady Twickenham, a French _poupee_; and JulianLamberhurst, the composer, who looked as if he had grown up to his sixfoot four in one night, like the mustard seed; and Hilary Lane, thefriend of poets; and--how many more! For Dindie Ackroyde loved to gathera crowd for lunch, and had a sort of physical love of noise and humancomplications.
At the far end of the room there was a section which was raised a fewinches above the rest. Here stood two Steinway grand pianos, tail totail, their dark polished cases shining soberly in the pale light ofNovember. There were some deep settees on this species of dais, and,looking towards it, over the heads of the crowd in the lower part of theroom, Lady Sellingworth saw Craven again.
He was sitting beside a pretty girl, whom Lady Sellingworth did notknow, and talking. His face looked hard and bored, but he was leaningtowards the girl as if trying to seem engrossed, intent, on theconversation and on her.
Francis Braybrooke came up. Lady Sellingworth was busy, greeting andbeing greeted. Once more she made part of the regiment. But the rankswere broken. There was no review order here. Only for an instant had shebeen aware of formality, of the "eyes right" atmosphere--when she hadentered the room. Then the old voices hummed about her. And she saw thewell-known and experienced eyes examining her. And she had to listen andto answer, to be charming, to "hold her own."
"I'm putting Alick Craven next to you at lunch, Adela. I know you and heare pals. He's over there with Lily Bright."
"And who is Lily Bright?" said Lady Sellingworth in her most offhandway.
"A dear little New Englander, Knickerbocker to the bone."
She turned away composedly to meet another guest.
Francis Braybrooke began to talk to Lady Sellingworth, and almostimmediately Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Birchington joined them.
"How marvellous you look, Adela!" said Lady Wrackley, staring with herbirdlike eyes. "You will cut us all out. I must go to Geneva. Haveyou heard about Beryl? But of course you have. She was so delightedat coming into a fortune that she rushed away to Rose Tree Gardens tocelebrate the event with a man without even waiting till she had got hermourning. Didn't she, Minnie?"
Francis Braybrooke was looking shocked.
"I cannot believe that Miss Van Tuyn--" he began.
But Mrs. Birchington interrupted him.
"But I was there!" she said.
"I beg your pardon!" said Braybrooke.
"It was the very day the death of her father was in the evening papers.I came back from the club with the paper in my hand, and met Beryl VanTuyn getting out of the lift in Rose Tree Gardens with the man who livesopposite to me. She absolutely looked embarrassed."
"Impossible!" said Lady Wrackley. "She couldn't!"
"I assure you she did! But she introduced me to him."
"She cannot have heard of her father's death," said Braybrooke.
"But she had! For I expressed my sympathy and she thanked me."
Braybrooke looked very ill at ease and glanced plaintively towards theplace where Craven was sitting with the pretty American.
"No doubt she had been to visit old friends," he said, "Americanfriends."
"But this man, Nicolas Arabian, lives alone in his flat. And I'm surehe's not an American. Lady Archie has seen him several times withBeryl."
"What's he like?" asked Lady Wrackley.
"Marvellously handsome! A _charmeur_ if ever there was one. Berylcertainly had good taste, but--"
At this moment there was a general movement. The butler had murmured toMrs. Ackroyde that lunch was ready.
Lady Sellingworth was among the first few women who left thedrawing-room, and was sitting at a round table in the big,stone-coloured dining-room when Baron de Melville, an habitue at Coombe,bent over her.
"I'm lucky enough to be beside you!" he said. "This is a rare occasion.One never meets you now."
He sat down on her right. The place on her left was vacant. People werestill coming in, talking, laughing, finding their seats. The Duchess ofWellingborough, who was exactly opposite to Lady Sellingworth, leanedforward to speak to her.
"Adela . . . Adela!"
"Yes? How are you, Cora?"
"Very well, as I always am. Isn't Lavallois a marvel?"
"He is certainly very clever."
"You are proud of it, my dear. Have you heard what the Bolshevist envoysaid to the Prime Minister when--"
But at this moment someone spoke to the duchess, who was alreadybeginning to laugh at the story she was intending to tell and LadySellingworth was aware of a movement on her left. She felt as if sheblushed, though no colour came into her face.
"How are you, Lady Sellingworth?"
She had not turned her head, but now she did, and met Craven's hard,uncompromising blue eyes and deliberately smiling lips.
"Oh, it's you! How nice!"
She gave him her hand. He just touched it coldly. What a boy he stillwas in his polite hostility! She thought of Camber Sands and thedarkness falling over the waste, and, in spite of her self-control andher pity for him, there was an unconquerable feeling of injury in herheart. What reason, what right, had he to greet her so frigidly? How hadshe injured him?
A roar of conversation had begun in the room. Everyone seemed in highspirits. Mrs. Ackroyde, who was at the same table as Lady Sellingworth,with Lord Alfred Craydon on her right and Sir Robert Syng on herleft, looked steadily round over the multitude of her guests with acomprehensive glance, the analyzing and summing-up glance of one to whomeverything social was as an open book containing no secrets which hereyes did not read. Those eyes travelled calmly, and presently came toCraven and Adela Sellingworth. She smiled faintly and spoke to RobertSyng.
"This is her second debut," she said. "I'm bringing her out again. Theyare all amazed."
"What about?" said Sir Robert, in his grim and very masculine voice.
"Bobbie, you know as well as I do. I had a bet with Anne that she wouldaccept. I'm five pounds to the good. Adela is a creature of impulses,and that sort of creature does young things to the day of its death."
"Is it doing a young thing to accept a luncheon invitation from you?"
"Yes--for _her_ reason."
"Well, that's beyond me."
"How indifferent you are!"
He looked at her in silence.
Lady Sellingworth talked to the baron till half-way through lunch.He was a financier of rather obscure origin, long naturalized as anEnglishman, and ardently patriotic. The noble words "we British people"were often upon his strangely foreign-looking lips. Many years agothe "old guard" had taken him to their generous bosoms. For he wasenormously rich, and really not a bad sort. And he had been cleverenough to remain unmarried, so hope attended him with undeviating steps.
Miss Van Tuyn was presently the theme of his discourse. Evidently he didnot know anything about her and Alick Craven. For he discussed her andher change of fortune without embarrassment or any _arriere pensee_,and he, too, spoke of the visit to Rose Tree Gardens. Evidently all theCoombe set was full of this mysterious visit, paid to an Adonis whomnobody knew, in the shadow of a father's death.
The baron greatly admired Miss Van Tuyn, not only for her beauty but forher daring. And he was not at all shocked at what she had done.
"She never lived with her father. Why should she pretend to be upset athis dea
th? The only difference it makes to her is an extremely agreeableone. If she celebrates it by a mild revel over the tea cups with anexceptionally good-looking man, who is to blame her? The fact is, weBritishers are all moral humbugs. It seems to be in the blood," etc.
He ran on with wholly un-English vivacity about Beryl and her wonderfulman. Everybody wished to know who he was and all about him, but heseemed to be a profound mystery. Even Minnie Birchington, who livedopposite to him, knew little more than the rest of them. Since she hadbeen introduced to him she had never set eyes on him, although sheknew from her maid that he was still in the flat opposite, which he hadrented furnished for three months with an option for a longer period. Hehad a Spanish manservant in the flat with him, but whether he, too, wasSpanish Mrs. Birchington did not know. Where had Beryl Van Tuyn pickedhim up, and how had she come to know him so well? All the women wereasking these questions. And the men were intrigued because of thereport, carried by Lady Archie, and enthusiastically confirmed by Mrs.Birchington, of the fellow's extraordinary good looks.
Lady Sellingworth listened to all this with an air of polite, but ratherdetached, interest, wondering all the time whether Craven could overhearwhat was being said. Craven was sometimes talking to his neighbour,Mrs. Farringdon, but occasionally their conversation dropped, and LadySellingworth was aware of his sitting in silence. She wished, and yetalmost feared, to talk to him, but she knew that she was interested inno one else in the room. Now that she was again with Craven she realizedpainfully how much she had missed him. Among all these people, many ofthem talented, clever, even fascinating, she was only concerned abouthim. To her he seemed almost like a vital human being in the midst ofa crowd of dummies endowed by some magic with the power of speech. Sheonly felt him at this moment, though she was conscious of the baron,Mrs. Ackroyde, Bobbie Syng, the duchess, and others who were near her.This silent boy--he was still a boy in comparison with her--crumblinghis bread, wiped them all out. Yet he was no cleverer than they were, nomore vital than they. And half of her almost hated him still.
"Oh, why do I worry about him?" she thought, while she leaned towardsthe baron and looked energetically into his shifting dark eyes. "Whatis there in him that holds me and tortures me? He's only an ordinaryman--horribly ordinary, I know that."
And she thought of Camber Sands and the twilight, and saw Cravenseeking for Beryl's hand--footman and housemaid. What had she, AdelaSellingworth, with her knowledge and her past, her great burden ofpassionate experiences--what had she to do with such an ordinary youngman?
"Nicolas might possibly be Greek or Russian. But what are we to make ofArabian?"
It was still the voice of the Baron--full, energetic, intenselyun-English.
"Have you heard the name before, Lady Sellingworth?"
"Yes," she said.
"Really! What country does it belong to? Surely not to our England?"
"No."
Craven was not speaking at this moment, and she felt that he waslistening to them. She remembered how Beryl had hurt her and, speakingwith deliberate clearness, she added:
"Garstin, the painter, has had this man, Nicolas Arabian, as a sitterfor a long time, certainly for a good many weeks. And Beryl is just nowintensely interested in portrait painting."
"What--he's a model! But with a flat in Rose Tree Gardens!"
"He is evidently not an ordinary model. I believe Mr. Garstin pickedhim up somewhere, saw him by chance, probably at the Cafe Royal or someplace of that kind, and asked him to sit."
"Do you know him?" asked the Baron, with sharp curiosity.
"Oh, no! I have never set eyes upon him. Beryl told me."
"Miss Van Tuyn! We all thought she was trying to keep the whole matter asecret."
"Well, she told me quite openly. You were there, weren't you?"
She turned rather abruptly to Craven. He started.
"What? I beg your pardon. I didn't catch what you were saying."
"He's lying!" she thought.
The Baron was addressed by his neighbour, Magdalen Dearing, whosehusband he was supposed, perhaps quite wrongly, to finance, and LadySellingworth was left free for a conversation with Craven.
"We were speaking about Beryl," she began.
Suddenly she felt hard, and she wanted to punish Craven, as we only wishto punish those who can make us suffer because they have made us carefor them.
"It seems that--they are all saying--"
She paused. She wanted to repeat the scandalous gossip about Beryl'svisit to this mystery man, Arabian, immediately after her father'sdeath. But she could not do it. No, she could not punish him with sucha dirty weapon. He was worthy of polished steel, and this would be rustyscrap-iron.
"It's nothing but stupid gossip," she said. "And you and I have neverdealt in that together, have we?"
"Oh, I enjoy hearing about my neighbours," he answered, "or I shouldn'tcome here."
She felt a sharp thrust of disappointment. His voice was cold and fullof detachment; the glance of his blue eyes was hard and unrelenting. Shehad never seen him like this till to-day.
"What are they saying about Miss Van Tuyn?" he added. "Anythingamusing?"
"No. And in any case it's not the moment to talk nonsense about her,just when she is in deep mourning."
With an almost bitter smile she continued, after a slight hesitation:
"There is a close time for game during which the guns must be patient.There ought to be a close time for human beings in sorrow. We ought notto fire at them all the year round."
"What does it matter? They fire at us all the year round. The carnage ismutual."
"Have you turned cynic?"
"I don't think I was ever a sentimentalist."
"Perhaps not. But must one be either the one or the other?"
"I am quite sure you are not the latter."
"I should be sorry to be the former," she said, with unusualearnestness.
Something in his voice made her suddenly feel very sad, with a coldnessof sorrow that was like frost binding her heart. She looked across thebig table. A long window was opposite to her. Through it she saw distanttree-tops rising into the misty grey sky. And she thought of the silenceof the bare woods, so near and yet so remote. Why was life so heartless?Why could not he and she understand each other? Why had she nothing torest on? Winter! She had entered into her winter, irrevocable, cold andleafless. But the longing for warmth would not leave her. Winter wasterrible to her, would always be terrible.
How the Duchess of Wellingborough was laughing! Her broad shouldersshook. She threw up her chin and showed her white teeth. To her lifewas surely a splendid game, even in widowhood and old age. The crowd wasenough for her. She fed on good stories. And so no doubt she would nevergo hungry. For a moment Lady Sellingworth thought that she envied theDuchess. But then something deep down in her knew it was not so. To needmuch--that is greater and better, even if the need brings that sorrowwhich perhaps many know nothing of. At that moment she connected desirewith aspiration, and felt released from her lowest part.
Craven was speaking to Mrs. Farringdon; Lady Sellingworth heard hersaying, in her curiously muffled, contralto voice:
"Old Bean is a wonderful horse. I fancy him for the next Derby. Butsome people say he is not a stayer. On a hard course he might crack up.Still, he's got a good deal of bone. The Farnham stable is absolutelyrotten at present. Don't go near it."
"Oh, why did I come?" Lady Sellingworth thought, as she turned again tothe Baron.
She had lost the habit of the world in her long seclusion. In herretreat she had developed into a sentimentalist. Or perhaps she hadalways been one, and old age had made the tendency more definite, hadfixed her in the torturing groove. She began to feel terribly out ofplace in this company, but she knew that she did not look out of place.She had long ago mastered the art of appearance, and could never forgetthat cunning. And she gossiped gaily with the Baron until luncheon atlast was over.
As she went towards the drawing-room Mrs. Ackroy
de joined her.
"You were rather unkind to Alick Craven, Adela," she murmured. "Has heoffended you?"
"On the contrary. I think he's a charming boy."
"Don't punish him all the afternoon then."
"But I am not going to be here all the afternoon. I have ordered the carfor half-past three."
"It's that now."
"Well, then I must be going almost directly."
"You must stay for tea. A lot of people are coming, and we shall havemusic. Alick Craven only accepted because I told him you would be here."
"But you told me he had accepted when you asked me."
"That's how I do things when I really want people who may not want tocome. I lied to both of you, and here you both are."
"Well at any rate you are honest in confession."
"I will counterorder your car. Henry, please tell Lady Sellingworth'schauffeur that he will be sent for when he is wanted. Oh, Anne, welcomethe wandering sheep back to the social fold!"
She threaded her way slowly through the crowd, talking calmly to one andanother, seeing everything, understanding everything, tremendously athome in the midst of complications.
Lady Sellingworth talked to Lady Anne, who had just come back fromMexico. It was her way to dart about the world, leaving her husbandin his arm-chair at the Marlborough. She brought gossip with her fromacross the seas, gossip about exotic Presidents and their mistresses,about revolutionary generals and explorers, about opera singers inHavana, and great dancers in the Argentine. In her set she was called"the peripatetic pug," but she had none of the pug's snoring laziness.Presently someone took her away to play bridge, and for a moment LadySellingworth was standing alone. She was close to a great window whichgave on to the terrace at the back of the house facing the fallinggardens and the woods. She looked out, then looked across the room.Craven was standing near the door. He had just come in with a lot ofmen from the dining-room. He had a cigar in his hand. His cheeks wereflushed. He looked hot and drawn, like a man in a noisy prison ofheat which excited him, but tormented him too. His eyes shone almostfeverishly. As she looked at him, not knowing that he was being watchedhe drew a long breath, almost like a man who feared suffocation.Immediately afterwards he glanced across the room and saw her.
She beckoned to him. With a reluctant air, and looking severe, he cameacross to her.
"Are you going to play bridge?" she said.
"I don't think so."
"Dindie has persuaded me to stay on for the music. Shall we take alittle walk in the garden? I am so unaccustomed to crowds that I amlonging for air."
She paused, then added:
"And a little quiet."
"Certainly," he said stiffly.
"Does he hate me?" she thought, with a sinking of despair. He went tofetch her wrap. They met in the hall.
"Where are you two going?"
Dindie Ackroyde's all-seeing eyes had perceived them.
"Only to get a breath of air in the garden," said Lady Sellingworth.
"How sensible!"
She gave them a watchful smile and spoke to Eve Colton, who was huntingfor the right kind of bridge, stick in hand.
"I'll find Melville for you. Jennie and Sir Arthur are waiting in thecard-room."
"I hope you don't mind coming out for a moment?"
Lady Sellingworth's unconquerable diffidence was persecuting her. Shespoke almost with timidity to Craven on the doorstep.
"Oh, no. I am delighted."
His young voice was carefully frigid.
"More motors!" she said. "The whole of London will be here by tea time."
"Great fun, isn't it? Such a squash of interesting people."
"And I am taking you away from them!"
"That's all right!"
"Oh, what an Eton's boy's voice!" she thought.
But she loved it. That was the truth. His youngness was so apparentin his coldness that he was more dangerous than ever to her who had anunconquerable passion for youth.
"Let us go through this door in the wall. It must lead to the gardens."
"Certainly!"
He pushed it open. They passed through and were away from the motors,standing on a broad terrace which turned at right angles and skirted theback of the house.
"Don't let us go round the corner before all the drawing-room windows."
"No?" he said.
"Unless you prefer--"
"I will go wherever you like."
"I thought--what about this path?"
"Shall we do down it?"
"I think it looks rather tempting."
They walked slowly on, descending a slight incline, and came to a secondlong terrace on a lower level. There was a good deal of brick-work inMrs. Ackroyde's garden, but there were some fine trees, and in summerthe roses were wonderful. Now there were not many flowers, but at leastthere were calm and silence, and the breath of the winter woods came toLady Sellingworth and Craven.
Craven said nothing, and walked stiffly beside his companion lookingstraight ahead. He seemed entirely unlike the man who had talked soenthusiastically in her drawing-room after the dinner in the _BellaNapoli_, and again on that second evening when they had dined togetherwithout the company of Beryl Van Tuyn. But Dindie Ackroyde had said hehad come down that day because he had been told he would meet her. AndDindie was scarcely ever wrong about people. But this time surely she hadmade a mistake.
"Oh, there's the hard court!" Lady Sellingworth said.
"Yes."
"It looks a beauty."
"Do you play?"
"I used to. But I have given it up."
After a silence she added:
"You know I have given up everything. There comes a time--"
She hesitated.
"Perhaps you will not believe it, but I feel very strange here with allthese people."
"But you know them all, don't you?"
"Nearly all. But they mean nothing to me now."
They were walking slowly up and down the long terrace.
"One passes away from things," she said, "as one goes on. It is rather ahorrible feeling."
Suddenly, moved by an impulse that was almost girlish, she stopped onthe path and said:
"What is the matter with you to-day? Why are you angry with me?"
Craven flushed.
"Angry! But I am not angry!"
"Yes, you are. Tell me why."
"How could I--I'm really not angry. As if I could be angry with you!"
"Then why are you so different?"
"In what way am I different?"
She did not answer, but said:
"Did you hear what the baron and I were talking about at lunch?"
"Just a few words."
"I hope you didn't think I wished to join in gossip about Beryl VanTuyn?"
"Of course not."
"I hate all such talk. If that offended you--"
She was losing her dignity and knew it, but a great longing to overcomehis rigidity drove her on.
"If you think--"
"It wasn't that!" he said. "I have no reason to mind what anyone saysabout Miss Van Tuyn."
"But she's your friend!"
"Is she? I think a friend is a very rare thing. You have taught methat."
"I? How?"
"You went abroad without letting me know."
"Is that it?" she said.
And there was a strange note, like a note of joy, in her voice.
"I think you might have told me. And you put me off. I was to have seenyou--"
"Yes, I know."
She was silent. She could not explain. That was impossible. Yet shelonged to tell him how much she had wished to see him, how much it hadcost her to go without a word. But suddenly she remembered Camber.He was angry with her, but he had very soon consoled himself for herdeparture.
"I went away quite unexpectedly," she said. "I had to go like that."
"I--I hope you weren't ill?"
He recalled Braybrooke's remarks about doctors
. Perhaps she had reallybeen ill. Perhaps something had happened abroad, and he had done her awrong.
"No, I haven't been ill. It wasn't that," she said.
The thought of Camber persisted, and now persecuted her.
"I am quite sure you didn't miss me," she said, with a colder voice.
"But I did!" he said.
"For how long?"
The mocking look he knew so well had come into her eyes. How much didshe know?
"Have you seen Miss Van Tuyn since you came back?" he asked.
"Oh, yes. She paid me a visit soon after I arrived."
Craven looked down. He realized that something had been said, that MissVan Tuyn had perhaps talked injudiciously. But even if she had, whyshould Lady Sellingworth mind? His relation with her was so utterlydifferent from his relation with the lovely American. It never occurredto him that this wonderful elderly woman, for whom he had such apeculiar feeling, could care for him at all as a girl might, could thinkof him as a woman thinks of a man with whom she might have an affair ofthe heart. She fascinated him. Yes! But she did not fascinate that partof him which instinctively responded to Beryl Van Tuyn. And that hefascinated her in any physical way simply did not enter his mind.Nevertheless, at that moment he felt uncomfortable and, absurdly enough,almost guilty.
"Have you seen Beryl since her father's death?" said Lady Sellingworth.
"No," he said. "At least--yes, I suppose I have."
"You suppose?"
Her eyes had not lost their mocking expression.
"I happened to see her in Glebe Place with that fellow they are allchattering about, but I didn't speak to her. I believe her father wasdead then. But I didn't know it at the time."
"Oh! Is he so very handsome, as they say?"
She could not help saying this, and watching him as she said it.
"I should say he was a good-looking chap," answered Craven frigidly."But he looks like a wrong 'un."
"It is difficult to tell what people are at a glance."
"Some people--yes. But I think with others one look is enough."
"Yes, that's true," she said, thinking of him. "Shall we go a littlefarther towards the woods?"
"Yes; let us."
She knew he was suffering obscurely that day, perhaps in his pride,perhaps in something else. She hoped it was in his pride. Anyhow, shefelt pity for him in her new-found happiness. For she was happier now incomparison with what she had been. And with that happiness came a greatlonging to comfort him, to draw him out of his cold reserve, to turn himinto the eager and almost confidential boy he had been with her. As theypassed the red tennis court and walked towards the end of the gardenwhich skirted the woods she said:
"I want you to understand something. I know it must have seemedunfriendly in me to put you off, and then to leave England withoutletting you know. But I had a reason which I can't explain."
"Yes?"
"I shall never be able to explain it. But if I could you would realizeat once that my friendship for you was unaltered."
"Well, but you didn't let me know you were back. You did not ask me tocome to see you."
"I did not think you would care to come."
"But--why?"
"I--perhaps you--I don't find it easy now to think that anyone can caremuch to be bothered with me."
"Oh--Lady Sellingworth!"
"That really is the truth. Believe it or not, as you like. You see, I amout of things now."
"You need never be out of things unless you choose."
"Oh, the world goes on and leaves one behind. Don't you remember mytelling you and Beryl once that I was an Edwardian?"
"If that means un-modern I think I prefer it to modernity. I thinkperhaps I have an old-fashioned soul."
He was smiling now. The hard look had gone from his eyes; the ice in hismanner had melted. She felt that she was forgiven. And she tried to putthe thought of Camber out of her mind. Beryl was unscrupulous. Perhapsshe had exaggerated. And, in any case, surely she had treated, wastreating, him badly.
She felt that he and she were friends again, that he was glad to be withher once more. There was really a link of sympathy between them. Andhe had been angry because she had gone abroad without telling him. Shethought of his anger and loved it.
That day, after tea, while the music was still going on in DindieAckroyde's drawing-room, they drove back to London together, leavingtheir reputations quite comfortably behind them in the hand of the "oldguard."
December Love Page 27