“Thoir astar dhith a nis,” he said to Donald.
Donald was nothing loath. The launch streaked away across the calm loch, leaving a broad swathe of churned silver water in her wake.
LONDON INTERLUDE
CHAPTER V
MR. AND MRS. HETHERINGTON SMITH
Mrs. Hetherington Smith was waiting for her husband in the lounge of the De Luxe Restaurant. He was late, but she was not impatient. She had “got over” being impatient long ago; she had attained a philosophical attitude of mind in a life of worries and ups and downs. Most people have ups and downs in their lives, but Mrs. Hetherington Smith had had more than her share of uneven fortune. She had started life fairly low in the social scale, and had married Arthur Smith (as he was then) when she was eighteen years old. Arthur Smith was only a broker’s clerk, but he had a genius for finance and ambitions far above his station. He started climbing. Once or twice his foot slipped on the ladder of success and down he went to the bottom again, taking his wife with him. Mrs. Hetherington Smith, who had just been getting used to a certain degree of comfort and affluence, would suddenly find herself plain Mrs. Smith once more, back in a small dark kitchenette cooking Arthur’s dinner and washing up the greasy plates with her own hands. The strange thing was that she didn’t mind—she settled down quite contentedly and made the best of it. There were compensations in poverty—so she discovered. You could talk to your neighbours and take part in their lives, and she found them more interesting than the people she met in the upper circles of society. They were real, and you were real. You could lend a hand when they were in trouble. . . . Another great advantage of being poor was that you had no servant worries, your home was your own and there was no need to bother your head about what the servants would think. If you took a fancy to tripe and onions for supper you could have it; you could have a kipper for tea, and go to the pictures if you felt inclined; or you could take off your corsets and slop about comfortably in an old dressing-gown and a pair of bedroom slippers. But the chief advantage of poverty lay in the fact that your husband was your own. You cooked his food as you knew he liked it cooked, and you mended his clothes, and, at night, you lay in his arms, and he was yours.
Mrs. Hetherington Smith thought of all this rather sadly as she waited for Arthur to come. Arthur was not really hers now. She had no female rival in his affections—Arthur was not that kind—but, since they had risen to their present high estate, the highest they had yet attained, she had lost Arthur—they had drifted apart. It was Business that had come between them—Business and the pursuit of pleasure—the making money and the spending. You never had a moment quietly, at home, by yourselves. You went out to parties or you had people in—it was good for Business. (Business! Mrs. Hetherington Smith was sick of the word.) Even at night there was no chance for a little talk—you were too tired to talk at night, too tired to do anything except crawl wearily into your narrow, comfortless single bed. (Arthur had insisted on single beds—they were the Right Thing.) Single beds, she thought, I believe that’s what’s at the bottom of a lot of trouble nowadays. They had started with single beds and gone on to single rooms, which was even worse; but the single beds had started the trouble.
She sighed and her gaze wandered round the elaborately decorated room. People were going in to dinner now, but there were more arrivals every few minutes to take their places—a steady stream of fashionably attired people flowing in through the swing doors, delaying a little, as if the lounge were a whirlpool in the stream, and passing on—
She watched a party gathering round one of the little tables; the women were pale, with bright eyes and painted mouths, the men sleek in evening dress. They were all chattering with unnatural gaiety, sipping sherry or cocktails, and nibbling biscuits or olives, or salted almonds. They were typical of this kind of life, thought Mrs. Hetherington Smith, this life that Arthur liked. He was prospering now and she was glad for his sake (of course she was glad, she told herself firmly). Her shoes pinched, and a bone was running into her side. She moved a little, easing her constricted body in the soft chair, and smoothing out the folds of her black charmeuse frock—black was slimming—it was a new frock from Gaston’s; the price of it would have kept them for about two months in their poverty-stricken days. It seemed a pity, somehow, Mrs. Hetherington Smith thought vaguely. It was so hot and stuffy, and the noise was so monotonous that her thoughts became vague and disjointed, they ran into each other and got mixed. She thought: I wonder what’s keeping Arthur—I wonder whether that girl in green is engaged to that young man—she’s letting him hold her hand, but you never can tell nowadays. If Effie had lived she would have been rather like that girl—nineteen she would have been. Perhaps it’s just as well, she might have minded. It’s funny how I don’t mind. I’m better at the other kind of life, it seems more real—less bother. It’s dressing up bothers me, and the servants, of course, but I’m quite good at it. I see things quicker than Arthur—I can do both kinds of lives—I wonder if anyone else has had such funny experiences—I must be a funny kind of person. If Arthur came to me to-morrow and said, “We’ve lost everything,” I believe I’d be glad. Sorry for him, of course, because it would mean he had failed, and he hates failure—he takes things hard—but glad for me. At any rate, it wouldn’t worry me. I wonder why Arthur doesn’t come.
The party she had been watching moved off slowly into the restaurant to dine, and Mrs. Hetherington Smith was revealed to herself in the large gilt mirror which hung on the opposite wall. She saw a big blonde woman in a black frock with diamonds, and smiled at the reflection. My hair’s nice to-night, she thought—that new man has done a softer wave—and I always had a nice skin—I’m glad Arthur needn’t be ashamed of me, anyhow. . . .
Something made her turn her head and she saw Arthur coming towards her. He was smiling, and his somewhat heavy face was temporarily lightened. He was almost handsome. He had iron-grey hair, smoothly brushed, and a neat grey moustache; his evening clothes were immaculate. Mrs. Hetherington Smith rose to meet him; she thought suddenly: Were like actors . . .
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said; “I’ve had a long day.”
“You look tired!”
“I am tired.”
“Let’s go home after dinner,” she suggested. “I’m not very keen on this play—If you’re tired—”
“Oh, I want to see Beldale—he said he might be going to ‘White Nights.’ I want to have a word with him.”
“Business, I suppose?” enquired Mrs. Hetherington Smith with a little sigh.
Arthur did not reply—there was no need; of course it was business. He sat down and ordered a cocktail.
“I’ve had a good day,” he told her. “Satisfactory all round. I’ve taken a place up North for the shooting.”
Her eyes widened—“In the North?”
“In Scotland,” he said with studied carelessness. “They all do it. It’s the right thing to do. Lord Beldale always takes a place in Scotland. We’ll shut up the house—get a caretaker for it—and take the servants north with us. That’s how it’s done—you’ll have to find out the details.”
She nodded. It wasn’t the first time she had had to find out the way things were done—she remembered the worry she had had over their first dinner-party.
“Have you taken the house without seeing it?” she asked after a moment’s thought.
“How could I see it? As a matter of fact, it isn’t the place I wanted—somebody else got in before me—but it doesn’t really matter as long as there’s shooting.”
“Partridge shooting?” enquired Mrs. Hetherington Smith.
“No, grouse and deer.”
Mrs. Hetherington Smith was surprised—shooting deer! The only deer she had seen were those in the King’s Park at Windsor. She wondered how you would shoot deer—it seemed cruel to shoot tame pretty creatures like that. Would they be all round the house, she wondered. Fortunately Mrs. Hetherington Smith had learned to be silent when she did not understan
d. Things cleared up by themselves, she found. She was silent now.
“How do you like the idea?” asked Mr. Hetherington Smith with a shade of anxiety in his manner.
She thought: It’s not much good asking me that now, when he’s taken the place, but she was too wise to say so.
“It’ll be a change,” she said cautiously.
He nodded. “You’ll like it, Mary. You like the country, don’t you? I’ve taken it for three months, and I’m paying a pretty penny for it, I can tell you.”
“Are you going to shoot deer?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s too difficult. But I shall shoot the grouse, of course. I’ll have to learn,” he said, bending forward and speaking in a low tone. “There are places where you can learn. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“You won’t do that,” said Mrs. Hetherington Smith comfortably. “I should start with the deer, though. You’re much more likely to hit a deer than a bird—” She stopped suddenly. I’d better shut up, she thought; I don’t know a thing about it . . .
Mr. Hetherington Smith had not been listening. “I shall have to make time somehow,” he said in a worried voice. “I shall have to have at least a dozen lessons, I suppose. It would spoil everything if I were to make a fool of myself before the others—”
“What others?” she enquired quickly.
“The house-party, of course. We must have a house-party—ask people to come and stay with us and shoot.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Hetherington Smith.
“It will be all right,” he said irritably. “You must get books and learn the right words. It’s got a special jargon the same as hunting—I shall have to learn it, too.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
He leaned forward still further. “It’s Stacey I want,” he said softly. “Mr. Grant Stacey. It’s him I’m doing it for. I must have him. They say he’ll go anywhere if you offer him shooting—”
She nodded again, her brow smoothed. She understood now what it was all about—it was Business.
Mr. Hetherington Smith finished his cocktail and they went in to dinner. The restaurant was packed with the fashionable London crowd. It was hot and scented, and the brilliant colours of the women’s gowns gave it the appearance of an exotic flower-garden. The band was playing a modern composition, full of unresolved chords. It was struggling to make itself heard above the bubble of talk and the ripple of artificial laughter.
A table was found for the Hetherington Smiths in a corner some distance from the band. Mr. Hetherington Smith was well known to the head waiter—his tips were munificent. In a moment the table was ready and the Hetherington Smiths were seated.
Mrs. Hetherington Smith watched her husband ordering their dinner, and thought: He does it well, now. He takes longer to learn things than I do, but somehow he’s part of it all when he has learnt—not outside like me. It’s acting to me all the time, but he’s really living it—at least I think so, you never can tell for certain with Arthur. Perhaps it’s because he enjoys it and I don’t.
She put her jet-encrusted pochette on the table beside her and her thoughts veered. It cost a lot, but it’s just right with my dress, she mused. Then she lifted her head and looked round the room to find the green girl who was like what Effie might have been, if Effie hadn’t died of croup in those dreadful lodgings in Frick Street. It was fourteen years ago and the Hetherington Smiths had experienced several fluctuations of fortune since those days: but Mrs. Hetherington Smith could still see the pattern of the red and green repp cloth on the table in the sitting-room when she shut her eyes, and the yellow china vases on the mantelpiece with bunches of daisies painted on the sides, and the picture that hung over the sideboard of Highland cattle in green glen with a waterfall. These things were indelibly painted on her mind. She remembered, also, the empty feeling when they had taken the limp body of her child out of her arms . . .
Her thoughts shied away. I suppose there will be Highland cattle there, she reminded herself as she sought for her fish-knife and fork amongst the cutlery beside her plate—Highland cattle and waterfalls—and, of course, deer. . . .
The head waiter appeared with a gold-necked bottle wrapped in a napkin. Fizz, thought Mrs. Hetherington Smith; how nice of Arthur! It’s to celebrate this new venture—I hope to goodness it will be a success. If he told me more I could help him better, but he thinks I’m a fool. He’s excited about it or he wouldn’t have said “It’s him I’m doing it for”—Arthur doesn’t often make mistakes like that nowadays.
Arthur was raising his glass and saying, “To Ardfalloch! That’s the name of the place, Mary—Ardfalloch.”
“Ardfalloch!” she repeated, smiling at him and drinking the toast. “It’s a nice name, anyhow. Who does it belong to?”
“A Mr. MacAslan,” Arthur told her. “Very old family, they are. Never let the place before, but he needs the money, apparently. Five hundred a month, I’m giving him.”
Her eyes went round, and the well-marked eyebrows, which she had the sense not to pluck, rose a little at the corners. “One thousand, five hundred pounds!” she said, in an awed voice. “Will it be worth all that, Arthur?”
“If he comes it will,” replied Mr. Hetherington Smith significantly.
There was silence between them for a few minutes and the light roar of conversation filled Mrs. Hetherington Smith’s ears. She was wondering how Arthur would get Mr. Stacey. Would she have to write “a little note” and ask him to come? She hoped not. Letters were a trial to her; she was never quite certain of the right thing to say. Her “little notes” were apt to be heavy with politeness. You had to be born and brought up in Society to achieve a light hand with “little notes.” If it was pastry, now, she thought, smiling a little, as she took her fork and attacked her helping of milles feuilles, I wouldn’t be afraid of the result being heavy.
She said at last, “I suppose we shall be asking other people besides this Mr. Stacey?”
“Of course we shall,” replied Arthur. “I don’t want him to think—I mean it’s got to be quite casual. I just meet him at the Club and say, ‘I wonder if you’d care to come up to Scotland—I’ve taken a place up there for the season’—something like that.”
“But supposing he doesn’t come?” she said, appalled at the thought of that fifteen hundred pounds spent for nothing.
“He’ll come,” Arthur said, trying to convince himself. “He’ll come because of the shooting. It’s supposed to be one of the best places in Scotland. He’ll come all right—you’ll see.”
“I wonder if Mrs. Bastable would come?”
“Come! Of course she’ll come if you ask her,” he cried. “It’s the thing to do. Anybody you ask will come.” He calmed down a little and added, “I think you might have Mrs. Bastable. She’s smart, and she knows everybody—you might do worse—”
Mrs. Hetherington Smith nodded. I suppose I had better ask her, she thought; Greta Bastable would be a help. She knows the ropes. Yes, I had better ask her. I wish I could have Mrs. Hogg and the children—what a holiday it would be for them! But it’s quite impossible, of course, so it’s no use thinking about it. (The Hoggs belonged to the lowest strata that the Smiths had plumbed and they would certainly not meet with Arthur’s approval as prospective guests.) But I might send them ten pounds, thought Mrs. Hetherington Smith—no, fifteen—and they could have a nice holiday at Brighton, or Southend. She smiled tenderly at the thought of the children’s delight at seeing the sea, and then sighed at the thought that she would not be there to watch them wading. She had liked the young Hoggs, and the youngest—who had been born when they lived on the same stair—was her godchild, and had been named Mary, after herself. Mary would be five now.
The smile and the sigh and the remembering look which accompanied these reflections were lost on Arthur (he was busy peeling an apple and was intent upon his task), but a tall military-looking gentleman with an eye-glass who had just come in at the door and was looking rou
nd the room for an empty table caught sight of Mrs. Hetherington Smith’s face and was interested.
He turned to his companion. “Who’s that damn fine-looking woman dining with old Hetherington Smith?” he enquired. “No, over there by the window—in black with diamonds—”
“God knows!” replied his companion irritably. “Who’s Hetherington Smith, anyhow? And why do we come to this hellish place for a meal, when we could eat in comfort at the club?”
The first speaker did not reply; he crossed the room with some difficulty and procured an introduction to the woman whose face had intrigued him. He was surprised to find that she was Hetherington Smith’s wife. Hetherington Smith was rather a dry old stick—clever as a monkey, of course, but not very interesting—this woman had personal attraction. He sat down and talked to the Hetherington Smiths while they had their coffee.
Colonel White was the first guest to receive an invitation to spend a fortnight at Ardfalloch—for the shooting—he accepted without a moment’s hesitation.
CHAPTER VI
LINDA
Greta Bastable received her invitation to Ardfalloch the following afternoon. She met Mrs. Hetherington Smith at “Gaston’s” private mannequin parade. This was not such a coincidence as it might appear, for Greta had introduced Mrs. Hetherington Smith to “Gaston’s” and had, thereby, gained the privilege of choosing a frock for herself from his latest models. M. Gaston and Greta understood each other very well. There was no ugly talk about commission, but, when Greta introduced a really good client to the establishment, M. Gaston felt grateful and showed his gratitude in a becoming manner.
Smouldering Fire Page 6