"Oh, I do love you--I do," she said softly.
Jimmy coloured hotly; he felt an uncontrollable longing to kick himself; he kissed her again with furtive haste.
"That's all right, dear," he said.
They had arranged to stay a week in London.
Christine liked London. "And we couldn't very well do anything very much, could we?" So she had appealed to him wistfully. "When mother----" She had not been able to go on.
Jimmy had agreed hastily to anything; he had chosen a very quiet and select hotel, and taken a suite of rooms. He did not know how on earth they were going to be paid for; he was counting on an extra cheque from the Great Horatio as a wedding present. He was relieved when the taxi stopped at the hotel; he got out with a sigh; he turned to give his hand to Christine; his heart smote him as he looked at her.
Sangster was right when he had called her "such a child." She looked very young as she stood there in the afternoon sunshine, in her black frock, and with her white flowers clasped nervously in both hands. Jimmy felt conscious of a lump in his throat.
"Come along, dear," he said very gently; he put his hand through her arm. They went into the hotel together.
Christine went upstairs with one of the maids. Jimmy said he would come up presently for tea; he went into the smoking-room and rang for a brandy and soda. For the first time in his life he was genuinely afraid of what he had done; he knew now that he cared nothing for Christine. It was a terrifying thought.
And she had nobody but him--the responsibility of her whole life lay on his shoulders; it made him hot to think of it.
He tossed the brandy and soda off at a gulp. He looked at his watch; half-past four. They had been married only two hours; and he had got to spend all the rest of his life with her.
Poor little Christine--it was not her fault. He had asked her to marry him; he meant to be good to her. A servant came to the door.
"Mrs. Challoner said would I tell you that tea is served upstairs in the sitting-room, sir."
Jimmy squared his shoulders; he tried to look as if there had been a Mrs. Challoner for fifty years; but the sound of Christine's new name made his heart sink.
"Oh--er--thanks," he said as carelessly as he could. "I'll go up." He waited a few moments, then he went slowly up the stairs, feeling very much as if he were going to be executed.
He stood for a moment on the landing outside the door of the private sitting-room, with an absurdly schoolboyish air of bashfulness.
He passed a hand nervously over the back of his head; he wriggled his collar; twice he took a step forward and stopped again; finally the appearance of a servant along the corridor drove him to make up his mind. He opened the door with a rush.
Christine was standing over by the window; the afternoon sunshine fell on her slim, black-robed figure and brown hair. She turned quickly as Jimmy Challoner entered.
"Tea has been up some minutes; I hope it's not cold."
"I like it cold," said Jimmy.
As a matter of fact, he hated tea at any time, and never drank it if it could be avoided; but he sat down with as good a grace as he could muster, and took a cup from her hand with its new ring--his ring. Jimmy Challoner glanced at it and away again.
"Nice room this--eh?" he asked.
"Yes." Christine had sugared her own cup three times without knowing it; she took a cake from the stand, and dropped it nervously. Jimmy laughed; a boyish laugh of amusement that seemed to break the ice.
"Anyone would think you had never seen me before," he said, with an attempt to put her at her ease. "And I've known you all your life!"
"I know; but----" She looked at him with very flushed cheeks. "I'm afraid, Jimmy--afraid that you'll find you've made a mistake; afraid that you'll find I'm too young and--silly."
"You're not to call the lady I have married rude names."
"But it's true," she faltered. She put down the cup and went over to where he sat. She stood with her hands clasped behind her, looking down at him with a sort of fond humility.
"I do love you, Jimmy," she said softly. "And I will--I will try to be the sort of wife you want."
Jimmy tried to answer her, but somehow the words stuck in his throat. She was not the sort of wife he wanted, and never would be. That thought filled his mind. All the willingness in the world could not endow her with Cynthia's eyes, Cynthia's voice, Cynthia's caressing way of saying, "Dear old boy."
He choked back a big sigh; he found Christine's hand and raised it to his lips.
"We shall get along swimmingly," he said with an effort. "Don't you worry your little head."
But she was not satisfied.
"I must be so different from all the other women you are used to," she told him wistfully. "I'm not smart or amusing--and I don't dress as well as they do."
Jimmy smiled.
"Well, one can always buy clothes," he said. A sudden wave of tenderness swept through his heart as he looked at her. "Anyway, you've got one pull over all of them," he said with momentary sentiment.
"Have I--Jimmy! What do you mean?"
He kissed her trembling little fingers again.
"You were my first love," he said with a touch of embarrassment. "And it's not many men who can claim to have married their first love."
Christine was quite happy now; she bent and kissed him before she went back to her seat. Jimmy felt considerably cheered. If she were as easily pleased as this, life would not be the difficult thing that he had imagined, he told himself. He selected a chocolate cake--suitably heart-shaped--and began to munch it with a sort of relish.
"How would you like to run over to Paris for a few days--later on, of course, I mean?" he added hastily, meeting her eyes. It would be rather fun showing Christine round Paris, he thought. He looked at her with a twinkle.
She was very pretty, anyway; he was proud of her, too, deep down in his heart. No doubt after a bit they would be quite happy together.
He finished the chocolate cake, and asked if he might smoke; he was longing for a cigarette. He was not quite sure if it would be correct to smoke in a room which would be chiefly used by Christine. With Cynthia things had been so different--she smoked endless cigarettes herself; there was never any need to ask permission of her.
He could not imagine Christine with a cigarette between her pretty lips. And yet--yet he had liked it with Cynthia. Odd how different women were.
"Please do smoke," said Christine. She was glad he had asked her; glad that for the rest of his life whenever he smoked a cigarette, it would not merely be Jimmy Challoner blowing puffs of smoke into the air, but her husband. She glowed at the thought.
Jimmy was much more happy now; to his own way of thinking he was getting on by leaps and bounds. He went over and sat on the arm of Christine's chair; another moment and he would have put an arm round her, but a soft, apologetic tapping at the door sent him flying away from her to the other side of the room.
He was carefully turning the pages of a book when he answered, "Come in," with elaborate carelessness. One of the hotel servants entered; he carried a letter on a tray; he handed it to Christine.
"A messenger from the Sunderland Hotel has just brought this, madam. He told me to say that it has been there two days, but they did not know till this morning where to send it on to you."
Christine's face quivered. She did not want to think of the Sunderland; her mother had died there; it would always be associated in her mind with the great tragedy of her life. She took the letter hesitatingly; she did not know the writing. She waited till the servant had gone before she opened it.
Jimmy was still turning the leaves of the railway guide feverishly. At the shutting of the door he turned with a sigh of relief.
"A letter?" Christine was drawing the paper from its envelope; pink paper, smelling faintly of lilies. Jimmy lit a fresh cigarette. He walked over to the window and stood looking into the street; a horribly respectable street it was, he thought impatiently, of good-class houses, with win
dows neatly curtained and knockers carefully polished.
He was really quite anxious to kiss Christine; he was wondering whether she, too, was anxious for him to kiss her. After a moment he turned a little, and looked at her tentatively.
But Christine was not looking at him; she was sitting with her eyes fixed straight in front of her, a frozen look of horror on her little face. The letter had tumbled from her lap to the floor.
"Christine!" said Jimmy sharply. He was really alarmed; he took a big stride over to where she sat; he shook her. "Christine--what has happened? What is the matter?"
She looked at him then; she turned her beautiful eyes to his face, and at sight of them Jimmy caught his breath hard.
"Oh, Christine!" he said almost in a whisper.
His thoughts sped back incongruously to a day in the years that had gone; when he and she had been children together down in the country at Upton House.
He had stolen a gun belonging to the Great Horatio, and they had crept out into the woods together--he and she--to shoot rabbits, as he had confidently told her; and instead--oh, instead they had shot Christine's favourite dog Ruler.
All his life Jimmy remembered the broken-hearted look in Christine's eyes when she flung herself down by the fast-stiffening body of her favourite. And now she was looking like that again; looking at him as if he had broken her heart--as if---- Jimmy Challoner backed a step; his face had paled.
"In God's name, what is it--what is it?"
And then he saw the letter lying there on the floor between them in all its brazen pinkness. The faint scent of lilies was wafted to his brain before he stooped and grabbed it up. He held it at arm's length while he read it, as if already its writer had become repellent to him. There was a long, long silence.
The letter had been written two days ago. Jimmy realised dully that Cynthia must have gone straight from his rooms that evening and sent it; realised that it had been lying at the hotel where Mrs. Wyatt died until now.
Perhaps Cynthia Farrow had not realised what she was doing--perhaps she judged all women by her own standard; but surely even she would have been more than satisfied with the results could she have seen Christine's face as she sat there in the big, silent room, with the afternoon sunshine streaming around her.
Twice Jimmy tried to speak, but no words would come; he felt as if rough hands were at his throat, choking him, squeezing the life out of his body, Then suddenly he fell on his knees beside his wife.
"Christine--for God's sake----" He tried to take her in his arms, but she moved away; shrank back from him as if in terror, hiding her face and moaning--moaning.
"Christine . . ." There was a sob in Jimmy Challoner's voice now; he broke out stammeringly. "Don't believe it--it's all lies. I'd give my soul to undo it--if only you'd never seen it. I swear to you on my word of honour that I'll never see her again. I'll do any mortal thing, anything in the wide world, if only you'll look at me--if you'll forgive me---- Oh, for God's sake, say you forgive me----"
Her hands fell from her face; for a moment her eyes sought his.
"Then--then it is true!" she said faintly.
"Yes. I can't tell you a lie about it--it is true. I did--did love her. I was--engaged to her; but it's all over. I swear to you that it's all over and done with. I'll never see her again--I'll be so good to you." She hardly seemed to hear.
"Then you never really loved me?" she asked after a moment. "It wasn't because--because you loved me?"
"N-no." He got to his feet again; he strode up and down the room agitatedly. He had spoken truly enough when he said that he would have given his soul to undo these last few moments.
Presently he came back to where she sat--this poor little wife of his.
"Forgive me, dear," he said, very humbly. "I--I ask your pardon on my knees--and--it isn't too late; we've got all our lives before us. We'll go right away somewhere--you and I--out of London. We'll never come back."
She echoed his words painfully.
"You and I? I--I can't go anywhere--ever--with you--now!"
He broke into anger.
"You're talking utter nonsense; you must be mad. You've married me--you're my wife. You'll have to come with me--to do as I tell you. I--oh, confound it----!" He broke off, realising how dictatorial his voice had grown. He paced away from her again, and again came back.
"Look at me, Christine." She raised her eyes obediently. The hot blood rushed to Jimmy's face. He wondered if It were only his fancy, or if there were really scorn in their soft brownness. He tried to speak, but broke off. Christine rose to her feet; she passed the pink letter as if she had not seen it; she walked to the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Jimmy sharply.
She looked back at him. "I don't know. I--oh, please leave me alone," she added piteously as he would have followed her.
He let her go then; he waited till the door had shut, then he snatched up Cynthia's letter once again, and read it through.
It was an abominable thing to have done, he told himself--abominable; and yet, as he read the skilfully penned words, his vain man's heart beat a little faster at the knowledge that she still loved him, this woman who had thrown him over so heartlessly; she still loved him, though it was too late. The faint scent of the lilies which her note-paper always carried brought back the memory of her with painful vividness. Before he was conscious of it, Jimmy had lifted the letter to his lips.
He flung it from him immediately in honest disgust; he despised himself because he could not forget her; he tried to imagine what Christine must be thinking--be suffering. With sudden impulse he tore open the door; he went across to her room--their room; he tried the handle softly. It was locked.
"Christine!" But there was no answer. He called again: "Christine!" And now he heard her voice.
"Go away; please go away." An angry flush dyed his face. After all, she was his wife; it was absurd to make this fuss. After all, everything had happened before he proposed to her; it was all over and done with. It was her duty to overlook the past.
He listened a moment; he wondered if anyone would hear if he ordered her to let him in--if he threatened to break the door down.
He could hear her crying now; hear the deep, pitiful sobs that must be shaking her whole slender body.
"Christine!" But there was nothing very masterful in the way he spoke her name; his voice only sounded very shamed and humiliated as, after waiting a vain moment for her reply, he turned and went slowly away.
CHAPTER XII
SANGSTER IS CONSULTED
Jimmy had been married two days when one morning he burst into Sangster's room in the unfashionable part of Bloomsbury.
It had been raining heavily. London looked grey and dismal; even the little fat sparrows who twittered all day long in the boughs of a stunted tree outside the window of Sangster's modest sitting-room had given up trying to be cheerful, and were huddled together under the leaves.
Sangster was in his shirt-sleeves and old carpet slippers, writing, when Jimmy entered. He looked up disinterestedly, then rose to his feet.
"You! good heavens!"
"Yes--me," said Jimmy ungrammatically. He threw his hat on to the horsehair sofa, which seemed to be the most important piece of furniture in the room, and dropped into a chair. "Got a cigarette? My case is empty."
Sangster produced his own; it was brown leather, and shabby; very different from the silver and enamel absurdity which Jimmy Challoner invariably carried.
After a moment:
"Well?" said Sangster. There was a touch of anxiety in his kindly eyes, though he tried to speak cheerfully. "Well, how goes it--and the little wife?"
Jimmy growled something unintelligible. He threw the freshly lit cigarette absently into the fireplace instead of the spent match, swore under his breath, and grabbed it back again.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
"I've made the devil's own mess of it all," he said violently.
Sangster made no comment; he pu
t down his pen, pushed his chair back a little and waited.
Jimmy blew an agitated puff of smoke into the air and blurted out again: "She says she won't stay with me; she says----" He threw out his hands agitatedly. "It wasn't my fault; I swear to you that it wasn't my fault, Sangster. Things were going swimmingly, and then the letter came--and that finished it." He was incoherent--stammering; but Sangster seemed to understand.
"Cynthia Farrow?" he asked briefly.
"Yes. The letter was sent on from the hotel where Christine had been staying with her mother. It had been delayed two days, as the people didn't know where she was." He swallowed hard, as if choking back a bitter memory. "It came about an hour after we left you."
"On your wedding day?" Sangster was flushed now; his eyes looked very distressed.
Jimmy turned away.
"Yes," he said in a stifled voice. "If I'd only seen the accursed thing--but I didn't; she opened it, and then----" There was a long pause before he went on again jerkily. "I did my best--even then--but she wouldn't believe me; she doesn't believe me now. I swore that I'd never see Cynthia again; I swore that I'd do anything in the whole world she wanted----"
"Except the one thing which you cannot do, I suppose," Sangster interposed quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"Love her," said Sangster. "That's what I mean."
Jimmy tried to laugh; It was a miserable failure. "She's hardly spoken to me since," he went on, after a moment, wretchedly. "I've--oh, I've had a devil of a time these last two days, I can tell you. I can't get her to come out with me--she hardly leaves her room; she just cries and cries," he added with a sort of weariness. "Just keeps on saying she wants her mother--she wants her mother."
"Poor little girl."
"Yes--that's how I feel," said Jimmy. "It's--it's perfectly rotten, isn't it? And she looks so ill, too. . . . What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything."
"Well, then, I wish to God you would," said Jimmy with sudden rage. "I'm about fed-up with life, I can tell you----" He broke off. "Oh, I don't mean that; but I'm worried to death. I--what the devil can I do?" he asked helplessly.
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