Bird of Paradise Part 21

She laughed, pleased.

"Who sent you the flowers, Bertha?"

He was standing up by the door.

"Percy," she answered.

"Oh!"

CHAPTER XIV

"TANGO"

Madeline had taken the gossip about Rupert and Miss Chivvey very bravely, but very seriously. It pained her terribly, but she was grateful to Bertha for telling her.

A fortnight pa.s.sed, during which she heard nothing from Rupert, and then one morning, the day after a dance, she called to see Bertha.

Percy had had no more anonymous letters, and Nigel had remained away. He was deeply grateful, for he supposed Bertha had managed with perfect tact to stop the talk without giving herself away, or making him ridiculous.

Bertha had never looked happier in her life. She was sitting smiling to herself, apparently in a dream, when her friend came in.

"Bertha," she said, "I have some news. I danced the tango with Nigel's brother Charlie last night, and at the end--he really does dance divinely--what do you think happened? I had gone there perfectly miserable, for I had seen and heard nothing of Mr. Denison except that one letter after the Ballet--and then Charlie proposed to me, and I accepted him, like in a book!"

Bertha took her hand.

"My dear Madeline, how delightful! This is what I've always wanted. It's so utterly satisfactory in every way."

"I know, and he is a darling boy. I was very frank with him, Bertha. I didn't say I was in love with him, and he said he would teach me to be."

"It's frightfully satisfactory," continued Bertha. "Tell me Madeline, what made you change like this?"

"Well, dear, I've been getting so unhappy: I feel Rupert has been simply playing with me. I heard the other day that _they_ were dining out alone together--I mean Rupert and that girl. I don't blame him, Bertha. It was I, in a sense, who threw myself at his head. I admired and liked him and gradually let myself go and get silly about him. But this last week I've been pulling myself together and seeing how hopeless it was, and just as I'd begun to conquer my feeling--to fight it down--then this nice dear boy, so frank and straightforward and sincere, came along, and--oh! I thought I should like it. To stop at home with mother after my sort of disappointment seemed too flat and miserable: I couldn't bear it. Now I shall have an object in life. But, Bertha," continued Madeline, putting her head on her shoulder, "I've been absolutely frank, you know."

"I guessed you would be; it was like you. But I hope you didn't say too much to Charlie. It would be a pity to cloud his pleasure and spoil the sparkle of the fun. By the time you're choosing carpets together and receiving your third cruet-stand you will have forgotten such a person as Rupert Denison exists--except as a man who played a sort of character-part in the curtain-raiser of your existence."

"Well, I hope so. But I did tell Charlie I was not in love with him, and he said he would try to make me."

"I only hope that you're not doing it so that your mother should ask Rupert to the wedding? Not that I myself sha'n't enjoy that."

"Honestly, Bertha, I don't think so. More than anything it's because I want an object in life."

"Here's a letter from Nigel," said Bertha. "I expect he'll be making this an excuse to drop in again."

"Yes; but you mustn't tease Percy, because everything happened just as you wanted it to," said Madeline. "I really was surprised at how suddenly and determinedly Charlie began again. He had seemed almost to give me up. He dances the tango so beautifully; I think it all came through that. We got on so splendidly at tango teas. At any rate, but for that I shouldn't have seen him so often."

"It's a tango marriage," said Bertha.

Bertha strongly suspected a little manoeuvring of Nigel's in the course of the last fortnight, but did not realise how much there had been of it. The day Bertha had practically said he was not to interfere any longer, Nigel thoroughly realised that Percy must be jealous. He was wildly annoyed at this, since it would be a great obstacle, besides proving Percy was in love, but he saw the urgency of falling in at once with her wish; not opposing it, being absolutely obedient to it. This was not the moment to push himself forward--to show his feelings. Tact and diplomacy must be used. Of course, he had not the faintest notion about Mary and her letters, but merely thought that a sudden relapse of conjugal affection on Percy's side--confound him!--and an attack of unwonted jealousy had made Percy say something to Bertha to cause her coldness.

He remained away, but he thought of more than one plan to regain the old intimacy.

Quite unscrupulously he played several little tricks, at least he made several remarks about one to the other, to make the apparently hesitating Rupert more interested in Miss Chivvey and less so in Madeline, while he urged his brother Charlie on, and insisted on his continuing his court. The result was quicker than he had expected, and after a very little diplomacy Charlie had found Madeline willing to accept him. As Madeline was to Bertha just like a sister, it was natural that they should meet again now, and in this letter Nigel asked permission to call and have a chat.

Bertha agreed, for although she was slightly on her guard against the possibility of his wishing to flirt, she had not the faintest idea, as I have said, of Nigel's determined resolve.

Nigel had been fairly unhappy of late. Caring very little for any of his other friends, and having this _idee fixe_ about Bertha--which became much stronger at the opposition and the idea of Percy's jealousy--he moped a good deal and had spent more time than usual with Mary. Nigel was one of those very rare men, who are becoming rarer and rarer, who, having pa.s.sed the age of thirty-five, still regard love as the princ.i.p.al object of life. That Nigel did so was what made him so immensely popular with women as a rule. Women feel instinctively when this is so, and the man who makes sport, ambition or art his first interest, and women, and romance in general, a mere secondary pleasure, is never regarded with nearly the same favour as the man who values women chiefly, even though that very man is naturally far less reliable in his affection and almost invariably deceives them. To be placed in the background of life is what the average woman dislikes the most; she would rather be of the first importance as a woman even if she knows she has many rivals.

Bertha was exceptional, in that she did not care for the Don Juan type of man, but was rather inclined to despise him. She would far rather have ambition, business, art, duty, any other object in life as her rival, than another woman.

Percy received no more of the singular typewritten letters. He kept those that he had locked up in a box. Mary had grown a little frightened at the apparent success of those she sent. She never heard anything about them, but she knew that Nigel had not been seeing Bertha since the note about the picture gallery. She began to be happier again. Nigel was a great deal more at home, though not more affectionate. And Mary was one of those women, by no means infrequent, who are fairly satisfied if they can, by hook or by crook, by any trick or any tyranny, keep the man they care for somehow under the same roof with them--if only his body is in the house, even if they know it is against his will, and that his soul is far away. She would far rather that his desire was elsewhere, if only _he_ were positively present--the one dread, really, being that he should be enjoying himself with anyone else. Mary preferred a thousand times a silent, sulky evening with Nigel going up to his room about the same time that she went to hers, than, as he used to be when they were first married, gay, affectionate and caressing to her, and then going out. She would gladly make him a kind of prisoner, even at the cost of making him almost dislike her, rather than give him his freedom--even to please him--a freedom which included the possibility of his seeing Bertha again.

Although she was unjust and mistaken in her facts, it was, of course, a correct instinct that made her aware that Bertha was the great attraction--the one real object of pa.s.sion in Nigel's life. But she was incapable of believing that Bertha did not care for him, that if she had she would never have flirted with the husband of another woman. Merely because Bertha was pretty and admired, Mary, with her strange narrow-minded bitterness, took it for granted that it was impossible that she could be also a delicately scrupulous, generous, and high-minded creature. But just as pa.s.sion will make one singularly quick-sighted, it can also make one dense and stupid. Considering that Mary was madly in love with her own husband, it was absurd she should suppose it impossible that Bertha should take the slightest interest in hers. Of course Mary had heard that they were very devoted--if she had not, what would have been the use of writing the letters?--but she chose to believe that it was only on the husband's side, and that Bertha must of necessity be, of course, sly and deceitful. She hated Bertha violently, and yet she was by nature the kindest of women; only this one mania of hers completely altered her, and made her bitter, wild, hard and unscrupulous, stupid and clever, cowardly and reckless. A woman's jealousy of another woman is always sufficiently dreadful, but when the object of jealousy is hers by legal right, when the sense of personal property is added to it, then it is one of the most terrible and unreasonable things in nature.

CHAPTER XV

CLIFFORD'S HISTORICAL PLAY

Bertha was sitting with her little brother-in-law. She was to give him half-an-hour, after which she expected a visit from Nigel.

"What on earth is it, old boy?"

She saw he had some rather untidy papers in his hand and was looking extremely self-conscious, so she spoke kindly and encouragingly.

"Well, I daresay you noticed, Bertha, in my report, that history was very good."

"I think I did," she said gravely. "If I recollect right the report said: 'History nearly up to the level of the form.'"

"Oh, I say, was that all? Gracious! Well, anyhow, I've read a lot of history, and I'm fearfully keen about it. And, I say, my idea was, you see, I thought I'd write a historical play."

"Oh! what a splendid idea!" cried Bertha, jumping up, looking very pleased, but serious. "Have you got it there, Cliff?"

"Yes. Well, as a matter of fact, I have got a bit of it here."

"Are you going to let me read it?"

"Well, I don't think you can," he answered rather navely. "It's not quite clean enough; but I'll read a bit of it to you, if you don't mind.

Er--you see--it's about Mary."