Barnaby Part 18

"If," she said, and it was anger at herself that made her voice unsteady, "I had thrown myself over this bridge into the river, you would have cried out indignantly--'She'll catch cold!'"

"I might," he said gravely. "We are material wretches. You must come back with me and change your stockings."

He marched her towards the house. One startled, serious look he gave her, but his voice maintained the determined lightness with which it was necessary to face the realities of their bargain. The funny side of it was the only side that would bear looking at.

"You're not impatient?" he said. "You like the hunting? and the life over here? Can you stand it a little longer? We'll clear as soon as we decently can, and think out the tragedy that shall part us."

"Yes," she said; she was a little breathless. The windows yonder were winking flame; it looked as if the house was on fire, but it was only the setting sun....

"There's that horse my mother presented to you," he went on. "You will have to keep him as a souvenir. Hang him round your neck in a locket, what?"

She could but laugh at his whimsical suggestion.

"I'll keep nothing," she said. "An actress doesn't claim the stage properties; her paper crown, her gilt goblet, her royal dresses. Not a poor strolling actress like me, at least. Please, please--" her voice shook a little. He must be made to understand so much, jest and earnest. "Let me go out as you snuff a candle."

"Will you?" he said.

They had nearly reached the house; the glancing windows that had shone afire in their eyes were dark.

"I didn't come out to plan tragedies," said Barnaby. "I was sent to fetch you. The d.u.c.h.ess is in there with my mother. There's the Hunt Ball on in a day or two, and she wants us to dine and go with her party. I think she has some notion of keeping her eye on you. She thinks that I treat you badly."

Susan hung back.

"Must I go?" she said.

"Of course," he said cheerily. "I'd never hear the last of it if I went without you. And my mother is awfully keen on you eclipsing the rest. She's sending in to the bank for all the family trinkets."

"I wonder you are not afraid of my running away with them," she flung at him recklessly.

Barnaby laughed at her as one might at a foolish child.

"Oh," he said. "I'll be there, mounting guard."

The d.u.c.h.ess was lodged in a ramshackle way over a shop. She was not particular. After hiring all the stabling that was to be had in Melton, she had packed herself into a few odd rooms, approached by a dark entry and a narrow stair. It made her feel, she said, like an eagle.

But sometimes her hospitality outdid her accommodation. On the night of the ball she had asked as many people as could be squeezed into her dining-room; all intimate enough not to mind rubbing elbows; and dinner was a scramble.

"The youngest," she proposed, "shall sit with his back to the door, and duck when the plates are handed in over his head.... Do be careful. I put a little man there last year, but when the door opened he used to chuck up his head like a horse, and smashed no end of china."

Having settled this, she threw up a window and rang a bell violently up and down.

"That is for dinner," she said. "It has to be cooked outside, and my people dawdle so. Would you believe it, I was ten minutes ringing for my maid when I came in from hunting. She lodges a few doors higher up, and I had quite a crowd in the street."

"I remember," said Kilgour, "last time I dined with you, one or two bets were laid as to what was happening to the soup in the street below."

"Accidents do happen," she acknowledged. "It isn't quite true, however, that I stuck out my head once and caught them scooping up the sauce."

Susan, wedged in a corner between Kilgour and another equally ma.s.sive person, was puzzled by the face of a woman opposite, who was smiling at her.

"Don't you know me?" said she. "I recognized you by the dress you have on. I am Melisande."

She noticed the girl's bewildered look at her yellow hair.

"I keep a black transformation for the shop," she said. "My own idea.

But didn't you know my nose? How dear of you to forget it. People call it my trade mark, and say it's Jewish. The worst is, I haven't really shut up shop. I have a young hedgehog to chaperon here to-night. Oh, I am perfectly unashamed!--She is all p.r.i.c.kles, but worth a great deal of money. I really couldn't bring her down with me, so she is coming by herself in a special train, or some such extravagance. I thought she might do for Rackham."

"What?" said Barnaby. "Aren't you rather hard on my cousin?"

"It is because he is your cousin," said Melisande, "I am offering him the hedgehog. Have you ever considered what your reappearance meant to him? Don't we all know how hard up he is, and what a boon your inheritance would have been? If I don't step in with my benefaction he'll possibly murder you."

"Scarcely!" said Barnaby.

"Let me see," said Melisande. "Give me your hand."

But he would not.

"You will frighten my wife," he said.

"Give me the gla.s.s he was drinking out of," said Melisande. Barnaby's neighbour pushed it over to her, and she peered into it with alarming gravity. Silence waited on her prediction. She raised the gla.s.s, swung it round thrice, and spilt a little water.

"I've thrown out a misfortune," she said. "A terrible misfortune," and looked round for applause.

"I am eternally obliged to you," said Barnaby. "Thanks!" But she would not give up his gla.s.s.

"There are strange things here," she said, clasping her hands, and gazing into it with half-shut eyes. Barnaby reached over and captured the gla.s.s.

"We don't want her to reveal all our secrets, do we, Susan?" he said, and saved the situation by drinking the secrets down.

His presence of mind turned the laugh against Melisande, whose expression was a study. Ignoring public ridicule, she affected to meditate on his disturbing action.

"I wish I could remember what that portends," she said solemnly. "I rather think it was fatal."

But Barnaby refused to be overawed. He was in a mood of tearing gaiety that Susan did not quite understand. She herself, although she knew that it was absurd, had had a superst.i.tious fear of that gla.s.s of water....

"Let's go on to the ball," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

In the general confusion the girl found herself on the stairs with Melisande, still ruffled. Somehow their glances met.

"Barnaby would turn anything into a joke. He was always like that,"

said she. "He hasn't any sense of decorum."

"--And you witches," remarked Kilgour, who was close behind, "haven't a sense of humour."

The sorceress pursed her lips.

"Was there anything--bad?" asked Susan.