Christine had gone for her hat and coat.
"Mother is not at all well," she said anxiously when she came back. "Do you know, Jimmy, I have thought sometimes lately that she really isn't so well and strong as she tries to make me believe."
Jimmy was not impressed; he said that he thought Mrs. Wyatt looked A1; not a day older than when she had mothered him down at Upton House all those years ago. Christine was pleased; she adored her mother; she was quite happy as they left the hotel together.
"You choose what you like," he told her when they were in the jeweller's shop. The man behind the counter thought him the most casual lover he had ever yet served. He looked at Christine with a sort of pity; she was so eager and happy. He brought another tray of diamond rings.
Christine appealed to Jimmy Challoner.
"I would much rather you chose one for me. Which one would you like best?"
He shook his head.
"I don't mind--anything you like; you've got to wear it." He saw a little swift look of amazement in her eyes; he roused himself.
"Diamonds are nice," he said with more enthusiasm.
Christine chose a single stone; the ring just fitted, and she turned her little hand about delightedly to show Jimmy how the diamond flashed.
She felt as if she were walking on air as they left the shop. Now and then she glanced at Jimmy as if afraid that she had dreamed all this.
She had loved him all her life; she was sure that he, too, must have loved her, or he would never have asked her to be his wife.
They had tea together. Over the buttered muffins Jimmy said suddenly:
"Christine, why can't we get married--soon, I mean!"
Lovely colour dyed her face.
"But--but we've only just got engaged," she said breathlessly.
"I know; but engagements are always short nowadays. If you are willing----"
Apparently she was more than willing; she would have married him that minute had he suggested it, She said she must speak to her mother about it.
"There is your brother to tell, too," she said.
"I cabled to him this morning," Jimmy answered.
"Did you!" Her eyes brightened. "How sweet of you, Jimmy. Do you think he will be pleased?"
"He's never pleased about anything," said Jimmy with a little laugh.
He leaned an elbow on the corner of the table and looked into her eyes.
"Say yes, Christine," he urged. "If you want to marry me, Mrs. Wyatt won't stand in the way; after all, you've known me all your life."
She flushed and stammered:
"Jimmy--I--I think I'm a little afraid. Supposing--supposing you found out that--that you'd made a mistake----" Her eyes were troubled.
Jimmy's face caught the flush from hers; for a moment his eyes wavered.
"We're going to be awfully happy," he asserted then, almost violently. "If you love me----"
"You know I do." His hand fell carelessly to hers.
"Very well, then say yes."
Christine said it.
She thought everything perfect; she had never been so happy in all her life. If Jimmy did not love her tremendously, he would not be so anxious to be married, she told herself. Theirs was going to be one of those romantic marriages of which one reads in books.
"Shall I speak to Mrs. Wyatt, or will you?" he asked her.
"I think I would like to--first," she told him.
"Very well." Jimmy was relieved. He was somehow a little afraid of Mrs. Wyatt's kind mother eyes; he dreaded lest she might read deep down into his heart, and know what he was doing--guess that he was only marrying Christine because--because why?
To forget another woman; to pay another woman out for the way she had treated him. That is how he would have answered that question had he been quite honest with himself; but as it was he evaded facing it at all. He merely contented himself with assuring Christine all over again that he was going to be very good to her and make her happy.
"I'll tell mother to-night," Christine said when they went back to the hotel. "And I'll write to you, Jimmy; I'll----" she broke off. The porter had come forward; he spoke to Jimmy in an undertone.
"May I speak to you a moment, sir?"
Christine moved away.
"If you will ask the young lady to wait, sir," the man said again with a sort of agitation.
A little flame of apprehension swept across Jimmy's face. He spoke to Christine.
"Wait for me a moment--just a moment." He turned again to the man. "Well--well, what is it?"
The man lowered his voice.
"The lady, sir--Mrs. Wyatt; she was taken very ill an hour ago. The doctor is with her now. I was told to tell you as soon as you came in, so that you could warn the young lady, sir."
Christine had come forward.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked. She looked from Jimmy to the porter wonderingly. Jimmy took her hand.
"Your mother isn't very well, dear." The little word slipped out unconsciously. "There is a doctor with her now. . . . No, don't be worried. I dare say it's nothing. I'll come up with you and see."
Christine fled up the staircase. She was already in her mother's room when Jimmy overtook her. Through the half-closed door he could see the doctor and a woman in nurse's dress. His heart began to race. Supposing Mrs. Wyatt were really ill; supposing---- The doctor came out to him as he stood on the landing.
"Are you--are you a relative of Mrs. Wyatt's?" he asked.
Jimmy hesitated.
"I--I am engaged to Miss Wyatt," he said. "I hope--I hope there is nothing serious the matter?"
The doctor glanced back over his shoulder. Jimmy's eyes instinctively turned in the same direction; he could see Christine on her knees beside the bed in the darkened room.
"Mrs. Wyatt is dying, I regret to say," the doctor said; he spoke in a low voice, so that his words should not reach Christine. "It's only a question of hours at most. I've done all I can, but nothing can save her. It's heart trouble, you know; she must have been suffering with it for years."
Jimmy Challoner stood staring at him, white-faced--stunned.
"Oh, my God!" he said at last. He was terribly shocked; he could not believe it. He looked again to where Christine knelt by the bed.
"Does she--Christine--who is to tell her?" he asked incoherently.
The doctor shook his head.
"I should suggest that you----" he began.
Jimmy recoiled. "I! Oh, I couldn't. . . . I----" He broke off helplessly. He was thinking of the old days down at Upton House; the great kindness that had always been shown to him by Christine's mother. There was a choking feeling in his throat.
"I think you are the one to tell her," said the doctor again, rather stiffly.
Christine had heard their voices. She looked towards the door; she rose softly and came out to where the two men stood.
Her eyes were anxious, but she was a hundred miles from guessing the truth. She spoke to Jimmy Challoner.
"She's asleep, Jimmy. The nurse tells me that she only fainted. Oh, I ought not to have left her when I knew she wasn't well. I shall never forgive myself; but she'll be all right now if she has a nice sleep, poor darling."
Jimmy could not meet her eyes; he bit his lip hard to hide its sudden trembling.
The doctor came to Jimmy's rescue.
"Has your mother ever had similar attacks to this one, Miss Wyatt?" he asked.
Christine considered.
"She hasn't been very well lately. She's complained of being tired several times, and once she said she had a pain in her side; but----" She broke off; she looked breathlessly into his face. Suddenly she caught her breath hard, clutching at Jimmy Challoner's arm.
"Jimmy," she said shrilly.
Jimmy put his arm round her; his voice was all broken when he spoke.
"She's ill, Christine--very ill. Oh, my dear----" He could not go on; he was very boyish still in many ways, and he felt more like breaking down and weeping with her than trying t
o comfort her and help her through the ordeal she had got to face.
But Christine knew in a minute. She pushed him away; she stood with hands clasped together, staring before her through the half-closed door with wide, tragic eyes.
"Mother," she said uncertainly; and then again, "Mother!" And now there was a wild sort of cry in her voice.
"Christine," said Jimmy huskily. He caught her hand; he tried to hold her back, but she broke away from him, staggered a few steps, and fell before either of the men could save her.
CHAPTER IX
MOTHERLESS
Sangster was writing letters in his rooms in the unfashionable part of Bloomsbury when Jimmy's urgent message reached him. It was brought by one of the hotel servants, who waited at the door, yawning and indifferent, while Sangster read the hastily scrawled lines:
For God's sake come at once. Mrs. Wyatt died suddenly this afternoon, and there is no one to see to anything but me.
Dead! Sangster could not believe it. He had admired Mrs. Wyatt tremendously that night when they all went to the theatre together; she had seemed so full of life, so young to have a grown-up daughter like Christine. Oh, surely there must be some mistake.
"I'll come at once," he said. He crushed Jimmy's note into his pocket and went back for his hat. He called a taxi, and took the man from the hotel back with him; he asked him a few questions, but the man was uncommunicative, and apparently not very interested. Yes, the lady was dead right enough, so he had been told, he admitted. The gentleman--Mr. Challoner--seemed in a great way about it.
Sangster was terribly shocked. He had quite forgotten the manner of his parting with Jimmy; he was only too willing and anxious to help him in any way possible. When they reached the hotel he was shown into the Wyatt's private sitting-room. Jimmy was there at the telephone; he hung up the receiver as Sangster entered the room; he turned a white, worried face.
"Awful thing, isn't it?" he said. Even his voice sounded changed; it had lost its usual light-heartedness.
"It's given me a most awful shock," he said again. "She was as well as anything last night; nobody had any idea----" He broke off with a choke in his voice. "Poor little Christine," he said after a moment. "We can't do anything with her. I wondered if you--but I suppose you can't," he added hopelessly.
"Where is Miss Wyatt?" Sangster asked. His kind face was very grave, but there was a steadiness in his eyes--the eyes of a man who might be trusted.
"She's in her room; we had to take her away forcibly from--from her mother. . . . You don't know what a hell I've been through, old chap," said Jimmy Challoner.
Sangster frowned.
"You!" he said with faint cynicism. "What about that poor little girl, then; she----" The door opened behind them, and Christine came in. She stood for a moment looking across at the two men with blank eyes, as if she hardly recognised them. Her face was white and haggard; there was a stunned look in her eyes, but Sangster could see that she had not shed a tear. He went forward and took her hand. He drew her into the room, shutting the door quietly. Jimmy had walked over to the window; he stood staring into the street with misty eyes. He had never had death brought home to him like this before. It seemed to have made an upheaval in his world; to have thrown all his schemes and calculations out of gear; life was all at once a thing to be feared and dreaded.
He could hear Sangster talking to Christine behind him; he could not hear what he was saying; he was only too thankful that his friend had come. The last hours which he had spent alone with Christine had been a nightmare to him. He had been so unable to comfort her; he had been at his wits' end to know what to do or say. She was so utterly alone; she had no father--no brothers to whom he could send. He had wired to an uncle of whom she had told him, but it was impossible that anyone could arrive before the morning, he knew.
Sangster was just the sort needed for a tragedy such as this; was a brick--he always knew what to say and do.
The room seemed very silent; the whole world seemed silent too, as if it had stopped aghast at this sudden tragedy which had been enacted in its midst.
Then Christine began to sob; the most pathetic, loneliest sound it was through the silent room. Jimmy felt himself choking--felt his own eyes blurred and misty.
He turned impulsively. Christine was huddled in one of the big chairs, her pretty head down-flung on an arm. Sangster stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
Jimmy never looked at his friend, or he might have learned many, many things from the expression of his eyes just then as he moved back silently and let Jimmy pass.
He fell on his knees beside Christine. For the moment, at least, everything else in the world was forgotten between them; she was just a motherless, broken girl sobbing her heart out--just the girl he had once loved with all a boy's first ardour. He put his arms round her and drew her head down, so that it rested on his shoulder, and her face was hidden in his coat.
"Don't cry, my poor little girl," said Jimmy Challoner, with a break in his own young voice. "Oh, Christine, don't cry."
Sangster, watching, saw the way her arms crept upwards till they were clasped round Jimmy's neck; saw the way she clung to him; heard the anguish in her voice as she said:
"I've got no one now, Jimmy; no one at all."
Jimmy looked up, and, across her bowed head, his eyes met those of his friend with a sort of defiance in them.
"You've got me, Christine," he said with a new sort of humbleness.
CHAPTER X
JIMMY HAS A VISITOR
"I'm going to be married, Costin," said Jimmy Challoner.
He was deep in an arm-chair, with his legs stuck up on the seat of another, and he was blowing rather agitated puffs of smoke into the room from an expensive cigar, for which he had not paid.
Costin was mixing a whisky-and-soda at the table, and just for an instant the syphon jerked, sending a stream of soda-water over the cloth.
"Yes, sir; certainly, sir; to--to Miss Farrow, I presoom, sir."
There was a momentary silence, then:
"No, you fathead," said Jimmy Challoner curtly. "To Miss Wyatt--a Miss Christine Wyatt; and I'm going to be married the day after to-morrow."
"Yes, sir; I'm sure I wish you every happiness, sir. And if I may ask, sir--will you still be requiring my services?"
Jimmy stared.
"Of course I shall," he said blankly. "Who the police do you think is going to look after my clothes, and shave me?" He brought his feet down from the opposite chair and sat up. "I'm going to be married in London--quietly," he said; he did not look at Costin now. "Miss Wyatt has lost her mother recently--I dare say you know. I--er--I think that is all," he added, with a sort of embarrassment, as he recalled the times, the many times, he had made a confidant of Costin in the days before he was engaged to Cynthia; the many little gifts that Costin had conveyed to her; the notes he had brought back. Jimmy stifled a sigh in his broad chest; he rose to his feet.
"And, Costin----"
"Yes, sir."
"There is no need to--to mention--Miss Farrow--if--you understand?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"Very well; get out," said Jimmy.
Costin obeyed imperturbably. He knew Jimmy Challoner very well; and in this case, at all events, the master was certainly no hero to the valet. Left alone, Jimmy subsided again into his chair with a sigh. The day after to-morrow! it seemed as if it must be the end of everything; as if he would be brought up sharply against an unscalable brick wall when his wedding-day came.
Poor little Christine! she had changed very much during the past few days; she looked somehow older--more grown-up; she smiled less frequently, and she was very quiet--even with Jimmy. And she loved Jimmy; she seemed to love him all the more now that he was all that was left to her. Jimmy realised it, too, and it worried him. He meant to be good to her--he wanted to be good to her; but--involuntarily he glanced towards the blank space on the mantelshelf where Cynthia Farrow's portrait used to stand.
He had
not seen her since that night when she had told him the truth; when she had told him that she had thrown him over because he was not rich enough, because she valued diamonds and beautiful clothes more than she valued his love. He wondered if she knew of his engagement; if she had been told about it, and if so--whether she minded.
So far nobody had seemed particularly pleased except the Great Horatio, who had cabled that he was delighted, and that he was making immediate arrangements to increase Jimmy's allowance.
Jimmy had smiled grimly over that part of the message; it was hard luck that the Great Horatio should only shell out now, when--when--he pulled up his thoughts sharply; he tried to remember that he was already almost as good as a married man; he had no right to be thinking of another woman; he was going to marry Christine.
The door opened; Costin reappeared.
"Please, sir--a lady to see you."
"What!"
Jimmy stared incredulously. "A lady to see me? Rot! It's some mistake----"
"No, sir, begging your pardon, sir," said Costin stolidly. "It's--if you please, sir, it's Miss Farrow."
Jimmy stood immovable for a moment, then he turned round slowly and mechanically, almost as if someone had taken him by his shoulders and forced him to do so.
"Miss--Farrow!" he echoed Costin's apologetic utterance of Cynthia's name expressionlessly. "Miss--Farrow . . ." The colour rushed from his brow to chin; his heart began to race just as it used to in the old days when he had called to see her, and was waiting in her pink drawing-room, listening to the sound of her coming steps on the landing outside. After a moment:
"Ask--ask her to come in," he said.
He turned back to the mirror; mechanically he passed a hand over the refractory kink in his hair; he looked at his tie with critical eyes; he wished there had been time to shave, he wished--and then he forgot to wish anything more at all, for the door had opened, and Cynthia herself stood there.
She was beautifully dressed; he realised in a vague sort of way that she had never looked more desirable, and yet for the life of him he could not have told what she was wearing, except that there was a big bunch of lilies tucked into the bosom of her gown.
The Second Honeymoon Page 6