Bird of Paradise Part 30

"Just what one would have thought!" said Lady Kellynch, rather tragically.

"I've come to ask you if you'll go with Percy to the Queen's Hall to-morrow," Bertha said. "He wants you to come so much."

The mother delightedly consented.

"Curious fad that is the mania for serious music," said Lady Gertrude.

"You don't share your husband's taste for it, it seems?"

"Well, I do, really. But it's such a treat for him to take his mother out!" said Bertha tactfully.

"I say, Bertha, may I come back with you? I'm going back to school next week."

"Of course you shall, if your mother likes."

His mother was glad to agree. She did not feel inclined to discuss Mrs.

Pickering with the boy that evening.

"Try and make him see what an awful woman she is," she murmured.

"I will; but it isn't dangerous," laughed Bertha. "Madeline is spending the evening with me to-morrow."

"Oh yes, that nice quiet girl. By the way, do you know, I heard she was engaged to young Charles Hillier. And then somewhere else I was told it was Mr. Rupert Denison."

"It's neither," calmly replied Bertha, "But I believe each of them proposed to her."

"Is that a fact? Dear me! Just fancy her refusing them both! What a grief for poor Mrs. Irwin!"

Bertha laughed as she remembered that as a matter of fact Madeline had accepted both, within two days.

CHAPTER XXVI

NEWS FROM VENICE

Madeline was sitting one afternoon with her mother in their little Chippendale flat, all inlaid mahogany and old-fashioned chintz, china in cabinets, and miniatures on crimson velvet; it was so perfectly in keeping that the very parlourmaid's cap looked Chippendale, and it somehow suggested Hugh Thomson's ill.u.s.trations to Jane Austen's books.

Mrs. Irwin and Madeline were not, however, in the least degree like Miss Austen's heroines and their mothers, except that Mrs. Irwin, though very thin and elegant, had this one resemblance to the immortal Mrs. Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice": "the serious object of her life was to get her daughter married; its solace, gossiping and news." Also she had much of the same querulousness, and complained every night of nerves, and each morning of insomnia.

Madeline was reading John Addington Symonds' Renaissance and everything that she could get on the subject of Italian history and cinquecento art. These studies she pursued still as a sort of monument to Rupert, or as a link with him. And to-day, as she was waiting for Bertha to call and take her out, she received a letter from him, from Venice.

It was one of his long, friendly, cultured letters; making no allusion to any thoughts of becoming more than friends to each other, and no reference to the interlude of his proposal, or the episode of her engagement to Charlie. This memory seemed to have faded away, and he wrote in his old instructive way a long letter in his pretty little handwriting, speaking of gondoliers, Savonarola, hotels, pictures, lagoons, fashions and the weather. This last, he declared to be so unbearable that he thought of coming back to London before very long. He asked for an answer to his letter, and wished to know what she was reading, what concerts she had been to, and whether she had seen the exhibition at the Goupil Gallery.

But though it took her back to long before the period of his love-letter, and he appeared to wish the whole affair to be forgotten, it gave her considerable satisfaction. He wanted to hear of her, and, what was more, he was coming back. Of course Mrs. Irwin saw that the letter was from him, and she remarked that she had always said everyone had a right to their own letters, and that after twenty-one, nowadays, she supposed girls could do exactly what they liked, which she thought was only fair; that mothers, very rightly, hardly counted in the present day, were regarded as n.o.body, and were treated with no confidence of any kind, of which she thoroughly approved; that Madeline's new coat and skirt suited her very badly and did not fit; and that grey had never been her colour.

Madeline's reply to this was to place the long letter into her mother's hand.

Having read it, Mrs. Irwin said she did not wish to force anybody's confidence, and she was evidently disappointed at its contents. However, she advised her daughter to answer without loss of time.

The conversation was interrupted by Bertha's arrival.

"You know my brother-in-law, Clifford?" she said. "The funny boy has 'littery' tastes and began writing an historical play! But he got tired of it and now he's taken to writing verses. I've brought you one of his poems; they're so funny I thought it would amuse you. Fancy if a brother of Percy's should grow up to be a 'littery gent'. I suspect it to be addressed to the mother of his beloved friend, Pickering. He is devoted to her."

"Where are you going to-day?" inquired Mrs. Irwin.

"I'm taking Madeline to see Miss Belvoir. She has rather amusing afternoons. Her brother, Fred Belvoir, whom she lives with, is a curious sort of celebrity. When he went down from Oxford they had a sort of funeral procession because he was so popular. He's known on every race-course; he's a great hunting man, an authority on musical comedy, and is literary too--he writes for _Town Topics_. Miss Belvoir is the most good-natured woman in the world, and so intensely hospitable that she asks everyone to lunch or dinner the first time she meets them, and sometimes without having been introduced, and she asks everyone to bring their friends. They have a charming flat on the Thames Embankment and a dear little country house called The Lurch, where her brother often leaves her. They're mad on private theatricals, too, and are always dressing up."

"It sounds rather fun," said Madeline.

"Not very exclusive," suggested her mother.

"No, not a bit. But it's great fun," said Bertha, "and I've heard people say that you can be as exclusive as you like at Miss Belvoir's by bringing your own set and talking only to them. People who go to her large parties often don't know her by sight; she's so lost in the crowd, and she never remembers anybody, or knows them again. To be ever so little artistic is a sufficient pa.s.sport to be asked to the Belvoirs'. In fact if a brother-in-law of a friend of yours once sent an article to a magazine which was not inserted, or if your second cousin once met Tree at a party, and was not introduced to him, that is quite sufficient to make you a welcome guest there. Now that my little brother-in-law has written a poem, I shall have a _raison d'etre_ in being there. You'll see, Madeline, you'll enjoy yourself."

CHAPTER XXVII

ANOTHER ANONYMOUS LETTER

"Oh, Bertha, I've heard from Rupert again," said Madeline, as they drove along.

"I saw you'd had a letter from that talented young cul-de-sac," replied Bertha.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I didn't mean anything. I like to tease you, and you must confess that he's the sort of man--well, nothing ever seems to get much forrarder with him! What does he say?"

"It's just the sort of letter he wrote long before he ever dreamt of proposing to me."

"Well, I think that's rather a good sign. He's rea.s.sumed his early manner. I believe he's going to work his way up all over again--all through the beaten paths, and ignore the incident that hurt his vanity, and then propose again. We may have rather fun here to-day. Sometimes there are only a few fly-blown celebrities, and sometimes there are very new beginners without a future, debutantes who will never _debuter_, singers who can't sing, actors who never have any engagements, and editors who are just thinking of bringing out a paper. Miss Belvoir collects people who are unknown but prominent, noticeable and yet obscure. Here we are."

While Bertha and Madeline were being entertained in Miss Belvoir's drawing-room something more serious was happening to Percy.

The day after the Hilliers' party Nigel had a terrible quarrel with his wife, and he threatened that if she ever again lost her self-control and disgraced him or herself by anything in the way of a scene, that he would leave her and never come back. This really frightened her, for she knew she had behaved unpardonably. She would not have minded so very much if he had gone away for a little while, but how was she to prevent the Kellynches going to the same place--even travelling with him? She had been amazed to see Bertha. At the time she sent the letters there had certainly been a marked change, a new movement, as she thought. They had had an effect, without a doubt, though how or what she hardly knew, but she supposed she had roused Percy's suspicions and he had stopped the meetings. And then Mrs. Kellynch calmly came to the party without her husband, which seemed to prove she knew nothing of the letters, and disappeared at once with Nigel into the shaded conversation-room, s.n.a.t.c.hing her host and openly flirting with him in the most marked way!

It had been too much for her self-restraint. But now Mary saw she had gone too far. Her open fury had been less successful than her secret intriguing, so she apologised most humbly, entreated him to forgive her, and even swore never to interfere again. He was to be quite free. He might see Mrs. Kellynch whenever he liked. But all this was, of course, too late for Nigel, since Bertha herself had declined to see him again, and Mary resolved to start afresh. Probably the husband had lost his suspicions and they must be roused again. If only Bertha had told him all that had happened at the party, and if only Percy had frankly shown her the letters and concealed nothing from her, there would have been no more trouble. But each of them, from mistaken reasons, had concealed these facts from the other. So, within a week of the entertainment, when he had been so enchanted with her coming home early, Percy received another shock, another warning anonymous letter.

It told him that his wife had made herself so conspicuous with Nigel Hillier that the hostess had requested her to leave, also that their meetings and their intrigue were the talk of London. He was again advised to put a stop to it, but was not this time given any day and hour or place to find them.

This time Percy said nothing to his wife. He made up his mind to have it out, for several reasons, with Nigel. Though he was angry and jealous, he now did not believe for a moment that Bertha was in any way to blame, but simply that Nigel must be paying her marked attention, and whatever the cause of the talk he was determined to stop it.

He thought for some time about where he could have an interview with Nigel. He could not ask him to his own house, nor could he go and see him at Grosvenor Street. His former idea of talking at the club he saw to be impossible.

He sat down and wrote: