A Damsel in Distress Part 49

"Tea or chocolate?" she inquired proudly.

"Tea, please," said Maud, finding her voice.

"One tea," sighed the mourner.

"Chocolate for me," said Geoffrey briskly, with the air of one discoursing on a congenial topic. "I'd like plenty of whipped cream. And please see that it's hot."

"One chocolate."

Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that occupied him.

"And bring some fancy cakes--I like the ones with icing on them--and some tea-cake and b.u.t.tered toast. Please see there's plenty of b.u.t.ter on it."

Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in whose lexicon there should have been no such word as b.u.t.ter, a man who should have called for the police had some enemy endeavoured to thrust b.u.t.ter upon him.

"Well," said Geoffrey leaning forward, as the haughty ministrant drifted away, "you haven't changed a bit. To look at, I mean."

"No?" said Maud.

"You're just the same. I think I"--he squinted down at his waistcoat--"have put on a little weight. I don't know if you notice it?"

Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on a little weight, and didn't know if she had noticed it! She was oppressed by the eternal melancholy miracle of the fat man who does not realize that he has become fat.

"It was living on the yacht that put me a little out of condition,"

said Geoffrey. "I was on the yacht nearly all the time since I saw you last. The old boy had a j.a.panese cook and lived pretty high. It was apoplexy that got him. We had a great time touring about. We were on the Mediterranean all last winter, mostly at Nice."

"I should like to go to Nice," said Maud, for something to say. She was feeling that it was not only externally that Geoffrey had changed. Or had he in reality always been like this, commonplace and prosaic, and was it merely in her imagination that he had been wonderful?

"If you ever go," said Geoffrey, earnestly, "don't fail to lunch at the Hotel Cote d'Azur. They give you the most amazing selection of hors d'oeuvres you ever saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters! And there's a fish--I've forgotten it's name, it'll come back to me--that's just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to have it broiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the flavour. Tell the waiter you must have it broiled, with melted b.u.t.ter and a little parsley and some plain boiled potatoes. It's really astonishing.

It's best to stick to fish on the Continent. People can say what they like, but I maintain that the French don't really understand steaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn't bad, though I prefer our way of serving it. Of course, what the French are real geniuses at is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I went ash.o.r.e for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet with chicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentious place near the harbour. I shall always remember it."

The mourner returned, bearing a laden tray, from which she removed the funeral bakemeats and placed them limply on the table. Geoffrey shook his head, annoyed.

"I particularly asked for plenty of b.u.t.ter on my toast!" he said.

"I hate b.u.t.tered toast if there isn't lots of b.u.t.ter. It isn't worth eating. Get me a couple of pats, will you, and I'll spread it myself. Do hurry, please, before the toast gets cold. It's no good if the toast gets cold. They don't understand tea as a meal at these places," he said to Maud, as the mourner withdrew. "You have to go to the country to appreciate the real thing. I remember we lay off Lyme Regis down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I went and had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amazing! Thick Devonshire cream and home-made jam and cakes of every kind. This sort of thing here is just a farce. I do wish that woman would make haste with that b.u.t.ter. It'll be too late in a minute."

Maud sipped her tea in silence. Her heart was like lead within her.

The recurrence of the b.u.t.ter theme as a sort of _leit motif_ in her companion's conversation was fraying her nerves till she felt she could endure little more. She cast her mind's eye back over the horrid months and had a horrid vision of Geoffrey steadily absorbing b.u.t.ter, day after day, week after week--ever becoming more and more of a human keg. She shuddered.

Indignation at the injustice of Fate in causing her to give her heart to a man and then changing him into another and quite different man fought with a cold terror, which grew as she realized more and more clearly the magnitude of the mistake she had made.

She felt that she must escape. And yet how could she escape? She had definitely pledged herself to this man. ("Ah!" cried Geoffrey gaily, as the pats of b.u.t.ter arrived. "That's more like it!" He began to smear the toast. Maud averted her eyes.) She had told him that she loved him, that he was the whole world to her, that there never would be anyone else. He had come to claim her. How could she refuse him just because he was about thirty pounds overweight?

Geoffrey finished his meal. He took out a cigarette. ("No smoking, please!" said the distressed gentlewoman.) He put the cigarette back in its case. There was a new expression in his eyes now, a tender expression. For the first time since they had met Maud seemed to catch a far-off glimpse of the man she had loved in Wales. b.u.t.ter appeared to have softened Geoffrey.

"So you couldn't wait!" he said with pathos.

Maud did not understand.

"I waited over a quarter of an hour. It was you who were late."

"I don't mean that. I am referring to your engagement. I saw the announcement in the Morning Post. Well, I hope you will let me offer you my best wishes. This Mr. George Bevan, whoever he is, is lucky."

Maud had opened her mouth to explain, to say that it was all a mistake. She closed it again without speaking.

"So you couldn't wait!" proceeded Geoffrey with gentle regret.

"Well, I suppose I ought not to blame you. You are at an age when it is easy to forget. I had no right to hope that you would be proof against a few months' separation. I expected too much. But it is ironical, isn't it! There was I, thinking always of those days last summer when we were everything to each other, while you had forgotten me--Forgotten me!" sighed Geoffrey. He picked a fragment of cake absently off the tablecloth and inserted it in his mouth.

The unfairness of the attack stung Maud to speech. She looked back over the months, thought of all she had suffered, and ached with self-pity.

"I hadn't," she cried.

"You hadn't? But you let this other man, this George Bevan, make love to you."

"I didn't! That was all a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Yes. It would take too long to explain, but ..." She stopped. It had come to her suddenly, in a flash of clear vision, that the mistake was one which she had no desire to correct. She felt like one who, lost in a jungle, comes out after long wandering into the open air. For days she had been thinking confusedly, unable to interpret her own emotions: and now everything had abruptly become clarified. It was as if the sight of Geoffrey had been the key to a cipher. She loved George Bevan, the man she had sent out of her life for ever. She knew it now, and the shock of realization made her feel faint and helpless. And, mingled with the shock of realization, there came to her the mortification of knowing that her aunt, Lady Caroline, and her brother, Percy, had been right after all. What she had mistaken for the love of a lifetime had been, as they had so often insisted, a mere infatuation, unable to survive the spectacle of a Geoffrey who had been eating too much b.u.t.ter and had put on flesh.

Geoffrey swallowed his piece of cake, and bent forward.

"Aren't you engaged to this man Bevan?"

Maud avoided his eye. She was aware that the crisis had arrived, and that her whole future hung on her next words.

And then Fate came to her rescue. Before she could speak, there was an interruption.

"Pardon me," said a voice. "One moment!"

So intent had Maud and her companion been on their own affairs that neither of them observed the entrance of a third party. This was a young man with mouse-coloured hair and a freckled, badly-shaven face which seemed undecided whether to be furtive or impudent. He had small eyes, and his costume was a blend of the flashy and the shabby. He wore a bowler hat, tilted a little rakishly to one side, and carried a small bag, which he rested on the table between them.

"Sorry to intrude, miss." He bowed gallantly to Maud, "but I want to have a few words with Mr. Spenser Gray here."

Maud, looking across at Geoffrey, was surprised to see that his florid face had lost much of its colour. His mouth was open, and his eyes had taken a gla.s.sy expression.

"I think you have made a mistake," she said coldly. She disliked the young man at sight. "This is Mr. Raymond."

Geoffrey found speech.

"Of course I'm Mr. Raymond!" he cried angrily. "What do you mean by coming and annoying us like this?"

The young man was not discomposed. He appeared to be used to being unpopular. He proceeded as though there had been no interruption.

He produced a dingy card.

"Glance at that," he said. "Messrs. Willoughby and Son, Solicitors.

I'm son. The guv'nor put this little matter into my hands. I've been looking for you for days, Mr. Gray, to hand you this paper."

He opened the bag like a conjurer performing a trick, and brought out a stiff doc.u.ment of legal aspect. "You're a witness, miss, that I've served the papers. You know what this is, of course?" he said to Geoffrey. "Action for breach of promise of marriage. Our client, Miss Yvonne Sinclair, of the Regal Theatre, is suing you for ten thousand pounds. And, if you ask me," said the young man with genial candour, dropping the professional manner, "I don't mind telling you, I think it's a walk-over! It's the best little action for breach we've handled for years." He became professional again.

"Your lawyers will no doubt communicate with us in due course. And, if you take my advice," he concluded, with another of his swift changes of manner, "you'll get 'em to settle out of court, for, between me and you and the lamp-post, you haven't an earthly!"