Sangster did not know how to answer; he sat staring down at the worn toes of his carpet slippers and thinking of Christine.
She was such a child, and she loved Jimmy so much. It made his heart ache to think of the shy happiness he had always read in her eyes whenever she looked at Jimmy.
"Of course, I shouldn't have told you, only I know you won't say a word," said Jimmy presently. "I--I stood it as long as I could; I stood it till I felt as if I should go mad, and then I bolted off here to you. . . . She's got nobody but me, you see." He drew a long breath. "I only wish to God Mrs. Wyatt were alive," he added earnestly.
Sangster said nothing. "I wondered if, perhaps, you'd go round and see her, old chap," Jimmy jerked out then. "She likes you. Of course, you needn't say you'd seen me. Couldn't you 'phone up or something? Get her to go out. . . . She'll die if someone can't rouse her."
Sangster coloured.
"I--I'm not good at that sort of thing, Jimmy. It's not that I'm unwilling to help you; I'd do anything----"
"Well, then, try it; there's a good chap. You--you were so decent to her that day Mrs. Wyatt died; you've got a sort of way that I haven't. I--I should be no end obliged. I'll--I'll keep out of the way myself for a bit, and then----" He looked anxiously at his friend. "Will you go?"
"She probably won't see me if I do."
"She will. She's sick of the sight of me."
Sangster smiled in spite of himself. He got up, stretching his arms; he shook his head at Jimmy.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," said Jimmy savagely. "But I swear to you that it's not my fault this time, anyway. I swear to you that I've done my best. I----"
"I'm not doubting it," said Sangster dryly. He fetched his hat and coat from a room adjoining, and they went out into the street together.
"Take her out to lunch," said Jimmy nervously. "Take her for a walk in the park--try to rouse her a bit; but for heaven's sake don't talk about me."
He looked anxious and worried; he really was very upset; but he was conscious of an enormous sense of relief as he and Sangster parted at the street corner. As soon as Sangster was out of sight he hailed a taxi, and told the man to drive him to his club. He ordered a stiff brandy and soda, and dropped into one of the deep leathern arm-chairs with a sigh. He had been married only three days, and already it seemed like three years. Of course, he was not blaming Christine, poor little girl; but--oh, if only she hadn't been quite such a child!
He lifted the glass, and looked at its contents with lugubrious eyes.
"Well, here's to a brighter future," said Jimmy Challoner drearily; but he sighed heavily as he tossed off the brandy and soda.
* * * * * *
Sangster felt decidedly nervous when he reached the hotel where Jimmy and his wife were staying. He had no faith in his own powers, though apparently Jimmy had plenty for him; he was no ladies' man; he had never troubled about a woman in his life, probably because none had ever troubled about him. He asked punctiliously for Jimmy; it was only when told that Mr. Challoner was out that he asked for Christine.
A little gleam of something like sympathy shot into the man's eyes. The chambermaid who waited on Christine was voluble, and a friend of his, and he had heard a great deal from her that was untrue, mixed up with a smattering of truth.
He said that he was sure Mrs. Challoner was in; he sent a page-boy up with Sangster's card.
It seemed a long time before the reply came. Mrs. Challoner would be pleased to see Mr. Sangster; would he go up to her sitting-room.
Sangster obeyed reluctantly; he dreaded tears; he dreaded to see grief and disillusionment in the beautiful eyes which he could only remember as happy and trusting. He waited nervously till she came to him. He looked round the room apprehensively; it had an empty, unlived-in look about it, though there were various possessions of Jimmy's scattered about it--a pipe, newspapers, and a large box of cigarettes. There was a small pair of Christine's slippers, too, with high heels. Sangster looked at them with eyes which he did not know were tender. They seemed to appeal to him somehow; there was such a solitary look about them, standing there in a corner by themselves.
Then the door opened and she came in; a little pale ghost of the girl whom he had last seen, with quivering lips that tried to smile, and shadows beneath her eyes.
It was an effort to Sangster to greet her as if he were unconscious of the tragedy in her face; he took her hand in a close grip.
"I am so glad you allowed me to come up; I didn't want to intrude; I asked for Jimmy, but they told me he was out, and so I wondered if you would see me--just for a moment."
"I am very glad you came; I"--she bit her lip--"I don't think Jimmy will be back to lunch," she said.
"Capital!" Sangster tried to speak naturally; he laughed. "Then will you come out to lunch with me? Jimmy won't mind, and----"
"Oh, no, Jimmy won't mind." There was such bitterness in her voice that for a moment it shocked him into silence; she looked at him with burning eyes. "Jimmy wouldn't mind no matter what I did," she said, almost as if the words were forced from her against her will. "Oh, Mr. Sangster, why did you let him marry me?--you must have known. Jimmy doesn't care any more for me than--than you do."
There was a tragic pause. She did not cry; she just looked at him with broken-hearted eyes.
"Oh, my dear; don't--don't say that," said Sangster in distress.
He took her hand and held it clumsily between his own. Her words had been like a reproach. Was he to blame? he asked himself remorsefully; and yet--what could he have done? Christine would not have believed him had he tried to tell her.
"It's true," she said dully. "It's true . . . and now I haven't got anybody in all the world."
Sangster did not know what to answer. He broke out awkwardly that things were always difficult at first; that Jimmy was really one of the best; that if only she would have a little patience, everything would come right; he was sure of it.
But she only shook her head.
"I ought to have known; I can't think now why it is that I never guessed," she said hopelessly. "All the other women he has known are so much better than I am."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't say that," he broke out; there was a sort of horror in his face as he contrasted Cynthia and her friends to this girl. "You're ill and run down," he went on urgently. "Everything seems wrong when you're not well. Will you come out with me? It's not raining now, and the air's beautifully fresh. I'm longing for a walk myself; I've been writing all the morning. We'll have some lunch together, and walk in the park afterwards, shall we?"
He thought she was going to refuse; she shook her head.
"Please do," he urged. "I want to talk to you; there are so many things I want to say to you." He waited a moment. "You told me once that you liked me," he submitted whimsically. "You've not gone back on that, have you?"
The ghost of a smile lit her eyes.
"No, but----"
"Then please come."
There was a moment's silence.
"Very well," said Christine. Her voice was quite apathetic. He knew that she was absolutely indifferent as to where she went or what she did. She looked so broken--just as if someone had wiped the sunshine out of her life with a ruthless hand.
She went away to dress, and Sangster stood at the window, frowning into the street.
"Infernal young fool!" he said savagely after a moment; but whether he referred to a youth who was just at that moment passing, or to Jimmy Challoner, seemed uncertain.
CHAPTER XIII
CHRISTINE HEARS THE TRUTH
Sangster took Christine to a little out-of-the-way restaurant, where he knew there would not be many people.
He carefully avoided referring again to Jimmy; he talked of anything and everything under the sun to try and distract her attention. She had declared that she was not hungry; but, to his delight, she ate quite a good lunch. She liked the restaurant; she had never been in Bohemia before. She was very interested in an old table San
gster showed her, which was carved all over with the signatures of well-known patrons of the house. A little flush crept into her pale cheeks; presently she was smiling.
Sangster was cheered; he told himself that she only needed understanding. He believed that if Jimmy chose, he could convince her that everything was going to be all right in the future; he believed that with a little tact and patience Jimmy could entirely regain her lost confidence. But patience and Jimmy seemed somehow irreconcilable; Jimmy was too young--too selfish. He sighed involuntarily as he looked at Christine.
When they had left the restaurant again, and were walking towards the park, he deliberately began to talk about Jimmy.
"I suppose Jimmy never told you how he and I first met, did he?" he asked.
"No." Her sensitive little face flushed; she looked up at him eagerly.
"It isn't a bit romantic really," he said. "At least, not from my point of view; but I dare say you would be interested, because it shows what a fine chap Jimmy really is." He took it for granted that she was listening. He went on: "It was some years ago now, of course--five years, I think; and I was broke--broke to the wide, if you know what that means!" He glanced down at her smilingly. "I'm by way of being a struggling journalist, you know," he explained. "More of the struggling than the journalist. I'm not a bit of good at the job, to be quite candid; but it's a life I like--and lately I've managed to scrape along quite decently. Anyhow, at the time I met Jimmy I was down and out . . . Fleet Street would have none of me, and I even had to pawn my watch."
"Oh!" said Christine with soft sympathy.
Sangster laughed.
"That's nothing; it's been pawned fifty times since it first came into my possession, I should think. Don't think I'm asking for sympathy--I'm not. It's the sort of life that suits me, and I wouldn't change it for another--even if I had the chance. But the night I ran across Jimmy I was fairly up against it. I hadn't had a square meal for a week, and I was ill to add to the trouble. Jimmy was coming along Pall Mall in evening-dress. He was smoking a cigar that smelt good, and I wondered as he passed me if I dared go up and ask him for a shilling."
"Oh, Mr. Sangster!" He looked down hearing the distress in her voice.
"Don't look so sorry!" he said very gently. "It's all in a day's march for me. I've had my good times, and I've had my bad; and when I come to write the story of my life--when I'm a bloated millionaire, that is!" he added in laughing parenthesis--"it will make fine reading to know that I was once so hard up that I cadged a shilling off a swell in evening-dress!"
But Christine did not laugh; her eyes were almost tragic as she looked up wonderingly at Sangster's honest face.
"And--and did you ask him?" she questioned.
"Did I not!" said Sangster heartily. "I went up to him--Jimmy stopped dead, I believe he thought I was going to pinch his watch--and I said, 'Will you be a sport and lend me a bob?' Not a bit romantic, you see!"
Christine caught her breath.
"And did he--did he?" she asked eagerly.
Sangster laughed reminiscently.
"You'll never guess what he said. He asked no questions, he took the cigar from his lips and looked at me, and he said, 'I haven't got a bob in the world till my brother, the Great Horatio, sends my monthly allowance along; but if you'll come as far as the next street, I know a chap I can borrow a sovereign from.' Wasn't that just Jimmy all over?"
Christine was laughing, too, now.
"Oh, I can just hear him saying it! I can just see him!" she cried. "And then what did you do?"
"Well, we went along--to this pal of Jimmy's, and Jimmy borrowed a fiver. He gave me three pounds, and took me along to have a dinner. And--well, we've been pals ever since. A bit of luck for me, wasn't it?"
"I was thinking," said little Christine very earnestly, "that it was a bit of luck for Jimmy."
Sangster grew furiously red. For a moment he could think of nothing to say; he had only told the story in order to soften her towards Jimmy, and in a measure he had succeeded.
Christine walked beside him without speaking for some time; her brown eyes were very thoughtful.
Sangster talked no more of Jimmy; he was too tactful to overdo things. Jimmy was not mentioned between them again till he took her back to the hotel. Then:
"I don't know how to thank you for being so kind to me," she said earnestly. Her brown eyes were lifted confidingly to his face. "But I've been happier this afternoon than--than I've ever been since my mother died."
Sangster gripped her hand hard for a moment.
"And you will be happy--always--if you're just a little patient," he said, rather huskily. "Jimmy's a spoilt boy, and--and--it's the women who have to show all of us--eh? It's the women who are our guardian angels; remember that!"
He hated himself for having had to blame her, even mildly, when the fault was so utterly and entirely Jimmy's. It seemed a monstrous thing that Christine should have to teach Jimmy unselfishness; he hoped he had not said too much.
But Christine was really much happier, had he known it. She went up to her room, and changed her frock for one of the few simple ones she had had new when she was married. She did her hair in a way she thought Jimmy would like; she sent one of the servants out for flowers to brighten the little sitting-room; she timidly ordered what she thought would be an extra nice dinner to please him. The waiter looked at her questioningly.
"For--for two, madam?" he asked hesitatingly.
"Yes, please. Mr. Challoner and I will dine up here this evening."
As a rule, Jimmy dined downstairs alone, and Christine had something sent up to her. She was vaguely beginning to realise now how foolish she had been. The little time she had spent with Sangster had been like the opening of a door in her poor little heart, letting in fresh air and common sense. After all, how could she hope to win Jimmy by tears and recriminations? She had heard the doctrine of "forgive and forget" preached so frequently; surely this was the moment in which to apply it to herself and him.
Her heart beat a little fast at the thought. She spoke again to the waiter as he turned to leave the room.
"And--and will you find out what wine Mr. Challoner has with his dinner, as a rule; and--and serve the same this evening."
The man hesitated, then:
"Mr. Challoner told me he should not be dining in this evening, madam," he said reluctantly. "He came in about three o'clock, and went out again; I think there was a message for him. He told me to tell you if you came in." He averted his eyes from Christine's blanching face as he spoke. "I am sure that is what Mr. Challoner said, madam," he repeated awkwardly.
"Oh, very well." Christine stood quite still in the empty room when he had gone; it seemed all the more lonely and empty, now that once again she had been robbed of her eager hopes.
Jimmy was not coming home. Jimmy found her so dull and uninteresting that he was only too glad of an excuse to stay out.
She wondered where he had gone; whom the message had been from.
A sudden crimson stain dyed her cheek. . . . Cynthia Farrow!
She tried hard to stamp the thought out of existence--tried hard to push it from her but it was useless. It grew and grew in her agonised mind till she could think of nothing else. She walked about the room, wringing her hands.
If Jimmy had gone to Cynthia, that was the end of everything. She could never forgive this. If Jimmy had gone to Cynthia, she hoped that she would die before she ever saw him again.
She could not believe that she had ever talked to him of Cynthia--that she had ever admired her, or thought her beautiful. She hated her now--hated her for the very charms that had so hopelessly captivated the man she loved. If Jimmy had gone to Cynthia . . . she stood still, fighting hard for self-control.
She tried to remember what Sangster had said:
"Jimmy is such a boy; give him a chance." And here she was already condemning him without a hearing.
She bit her lips till they bled. She would wait till she knew; she would wai
t till she was sure--quite sure.
She did her best to eat some of the dinner she had ordered, but it was uphill work. Jimmy's empty chair opposite was a continual reminder of his absence. Where was he? she asked herself in an agony of doubt. With whom was he dining whilst she was here alone?
After dinner she tried to read. She sat down by the fire, and turned the pages of a magazine without really seeing a line or picture. When someone knocked at the door she started up eagerly, with flushing cheeks; but it was only the waiter with coffee and an evening paper.
She asked him an anxious question:
"Mr. Challoner has not come in yet?" She tried hard to speak as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for Jimmy to be out.
"Not yet, madam." He set down the coffee and the evening paper and went quietly away. Outside on the landing he encountered the maid who waited on Christine.
"It's a shame--that's what it is!" the girl said warmly when he told her in whispered tones that Mrs. Challoner was alone again. "A shame! and her only just married, the pretty dear!"
She wondered what Christine was doing; she hovered round the door, sympathetic and longing to be able to help, and not knowing how.
Christine had taken up the paper. She did not know how to pass the evening; the minutes seemed to be dragging past with deliberate slowness.
She looked at the clock--only eight! She waited some time, then looked again. Five past. Why, surely the clock must have stopped; surely it must be half an hour since she had last glanced at its expressionless face.
She sighed wearily.
She had never felt so acutely alone and deserted in all her life; she had hardly been separated for a single day from her mother till death stepped in between them. Mrs. Wyatt's constant presence had kept Christine young; had made her more of a child than she would have been had she had to look after herself. She felt her position now the more acutely in consequence.
"Serious accident to Miss Cynthia Farrow." Her eyes caught the headline of the paragraph as she idly turned the page; she gave a little start. Her hands clutched the paper convulsively.
The Second Honeymoon Page 9