Deadham Hard Part 38

And again she laughed, not impishly, but with a hardness altogether astonishing to her auditor.

"Think," she cried, "of my sorry fate!--Not only a wretchedly ailing husband on my hands, needing attention day and night, but a wretchedly disconsolate young lover as well. For poor Marshall will be inconsolable--only too clearly do I foresee that.--Picture what a pair for one's portion week in and week out!--Whereas you, enviable being, are sure of the most inspiring society. Everything in this quiet room"--

She indicated the laden writing-table with a quick, flitting gesture.

"So refreshingly removed from the ordinary ba.n.a.l hotel _salon_--is eloquent of the absorbing, far-reaching pursuits and interests amongst which you live. Who could ask a higher privilege than to share your father's work, to be his companion and amanuensis?"--She paused, as emphasising the point, and then mockingly threw off--"Plus the smart _beau sabreur_ Carteret, as devoted bodyguard and escort, whenever you are not on duty. To few women of your age, or indeed of any age, is Fortune so indulgent a fairy G.o.dmother as that!"

Astonished and slightly resentful at the sharpness of her guest's unprovoked onslaught, Damaris had dropped the little bunch of trinkets and backed into her corner of the sofa.

"Colonel Carteret has gone," she said coldly, rather irrelevantly, the statement drawn from her by a vague instinct of self-defence.

"Gone!" Henrietta echoed, with equal irrelevance. For she was singularly discomposed.

"Yes, he started for England last night. But you must know that already, Henrietta. He wrote to you--he told me so himself."

But having once committed herself by use of a word implying ignorance, Mrs. Frayling could hardly do otherwise than continue the deception.

Explanation would be too awkward a business. The chances of detection, moreover, were infinitesimal. There were things she meant to say which would sound far more unstudied and obvious could she keep up the fiction of ignorance. This, quickly realizing, she again and more flagrantly fibbed. The voluntary lie acts as a tonic giving you--for the moment at least--most comforting conceit of your own courage and perspicacity. And Henrietta just now stood in need of a tonic. She had been strangely overcome by the force of her own emotion--an accident which rarely happened to her and which she very cordially detested when it did.

"Someone must have omitted to post the letter, then," she said, with a suitable air of annoyance. "How exceedingly careless--unless it has not been sent over from the hotel to the Pavilion. I have been obliged, more than once, to complain of the hall porter's very casual delivery of my letters. I will make enquiries directly, if I don't find it on my return.

But this is all by the way. Tell me, dearest child, what is the reason of Colonel Carteret's leaving so suddenly? Is it not surprisingly unexpected?"

"He was wanted at home on business of some sort," Damaris replied, as she felt a little lamely. She was displeased, worried by Henrietta. It was difficult to choose her words. "He has been away for a long time, you see. I think he has been beautifully unselfish in giving up so much of his time to us."

"Do you?" Henrietta enquired with meaning. "If I remember right we discussed that point once before. I can repeat now what I then told you, with even firmer a.s.surance, namely, that he struck me as remarkably well pleased with himself and his surroundings and generally content."

"Of course he loves being with my father," Damaris hastened to put in, having no wish to enlarge on the topic suggested by the above speech.

"Of course. Who doesn't, or rather who wouldn't were they sufficiently fortunate to have the chance. But come--to be honest--_je me demande_, is it exclusively Sir Charles whom Carteret loves to be with?"

And as she spoke, Henrietta bent forward from the waist, her dainty lavender skirts spread out on the faded blue of the sofa mattress, the contours of her dainty lavender bodice in fine relief against the faded blue cushions, her whole person, in the subdued light, bright and apparently fragile as some delicate toy of spun gla.s.s. She put out her hand, and lightly, mischievously, touched the string of pearls encircling the girl's throat.

"And what is the meaning of these, then," she asked, "you sweetly deceiving little puss!"

It was cleverly done, she flattered herself. She a.s.serted nothing, implied much, putting the onus of admission or denial upon Damaris. The answer came with grave and unhesitating directness.

"Colonel Carteret gave them to me."

"So I imagined. They are the exquisite fruit, aren't they, of the little expedition by train of two days ago?"

Damaris' temper rose, but so did her protective instinct. For that journey to Ma.r.s.eilles, connected as it was with the dear secret of Darcy Faircloth, did not admit of investigation by Henrietta.

"About where and when Colonel Carteret may have got them for me, I know nothing," she returned. "He left them to be given to me last night after he went."

She unclasped the necklace.

"They are very lovely pearls, aren't they? Pray look at them if you care to, Henrietta," she said.

Thus at once invited and repulsed--for that it amounted to a repulse she could not but acknowledge--Mrs. Frayling advised herself a temporary retreat might be advisable. She therefore discoursed brightly concerning pearls and suchlike costly frivolities. Inwardly covetousness consumed her, since she possessed no personal ornament of even approximate value.

The conversation drifted. She learned the fact of Miss Felicia's projected arrival, and deplored her own approaching exile the less. Only once, long ago, had she encountered Miss Verity. The memory afforded her no satisfaction, for that lady's peculiar brand of good breeding and--as she qualified it--imbecility, did not appeal to her in the least. There was matter of thankfulness, therefore, she had not elected to join Sir Charles and Damaris sooner. She would undoubtedly have proved a most tiresome and impeding element. Unless--here Henrietta's mind darted--unless she happened to take a fancy to Marshall. Blameless spinsters, of her uncertain age and of many enthusiasms, did not infrequently very warmly take to him--in plain English, fell over head and ears in love with him, poor things, though without knowing it, their critical faculty being conspicuous by its absence where their own hearts were concerned.--By the way that was an idea!--Swiftly Henrietta reviewed the possibilities it suggested.--As an ally, an auxiliary, Miss Felicia might be well worth cultivation. Would it not be diplomatic to let Marshall stay on at the Hotel de la Plage by himself for a week or so?

The conquest of Miss Felicia might facilitate another conquest on which her--Henrietta's--mind was set. For such mature enamoured virgins, as she reflected, are almost ludicrously selfless. To ensure the happiness of the beloved object they will even donate to him their rival.--Yes--distinctly an idea! But before attempting to reduce it to practice, she must make more sure of her ground in another direction.

During the above meditation, Henrietta continued to talk off the surface, her mind working on two distinct planes. Damaris, off the surface, continued to answer her.

Our maiden felt tired both in body and in spirit. She felt all "rubbed up the wrong way"--disturbed, confused. The many moral turns and twists of Henrietta's conversation had been difficult to follow. But from amid the curious maze of them, one thing stood out, arrestingly conspicuous--Henrietta believed it then also. Believed Carteret cared for her "in _that_ way"--thus, with a turning aside of the eyes and shrinking, she phrased it. It wasn't any mistaken, conceited imagination of her own since Henrietta so evidently shared it. And Henrietta must be reckoned an expert in that line, having a triad of husbands to her credit--a liberality of allowance in matrimony which had always appeared to Damaris as slightly excessive. She had avoided dwelling upon this so outstanding feature of her friend's career; but that it gave a.s.surance of the latter's ability to p.r.o.nounce upon "caring in _that_ way" was she now admitted incontestable.

Whether she really felt glad or sorry Henrietta's expert opinion confirmed her own suspicions, Damaris could not tell. It certainly tended to complicate the future; and for that she was sorry. She would have liked to see the road clear before her--anyhow for a time--complications having been over numerous lately. They were worrying. They made her feel unsettled, unnatural. In any case she trusted she shouldn't suffer again from those odious yet alluring feelings which put her to such shame this morning.--But--unpleasant thought--weren't they, perhaps, an integral part of the whole agitating business of "caring in _that_ way?"

Her eyes rested in wide meditative enquiry upon Henrietta, Henrietta sitting up in all her finished elegance upon the faded blue sofa and so diligently making company conversation. Somehow, thus viewing her, it was extremely difficult to suppose Henrietta had ever experienced excited feelings. Yet--the wonder of it!--she'd actually been married three times.

Then, wearily, Damaris made a return upon herself. Yes--she was glad, although it might seem ungrateful, disloyal, the man with the blue eyes had gone away. For his going put off the necessity of knowing her own mind, excused her from making out exactly how she regarded him, thus relegating the day of fateful decision to a dim distance. Henrietta accused him of being a sieve.--Damaris grew heated in strenuous denial.

That was a calumny which she didn't and wouldn't credit. Still you could never be quite sure about men--so she went back on the old, sad, disquieting lesson. Their way of looking at things, their angle of admitted obligation is so bewilderingly different!--Oh! how thankful she was Aunt Felicia would soon be here. Everything would grow simpler, easier to understand and to manage, more as it used to be, with dear Aunt Felicia here on the spot.

At this point she realized that Mrs. Frayling was finishing a sentence to the beginning of which she had not paid the smallest attention. That was disgracefully rude.

"So I am to go home then, dearest child, and break it to Marshall that he stands no chance--my poor Marshall, who has no delightful presents with which to plead his cause!"

"Mr. Wace?--Plead his cause? What cause? I am so sorry, Henrietta--forgive me. It's too dreadful, but I am afraid I wasn't quite listening"--this with most engaging confusion.

"Yes--his cause. I should have supposed his state of mind had been transparently evident for many a long day."

"But indeed--Henrietta, you must be mistaken. I don't know what you mean"--the other interposed smitten by the liveliest distress and alarm.

The elder lady waved aside her outcry with admirable playfulness and determination.

"Oh! I quite realize how crazy it must appear on his part, poor dear fellow, seeing he has so little to offer from the worldly and commercial standpoint. As he himself says--'the desire of the moth for the star, of the night for the morrow.' Still money and position are not everything in life, are they? Talent is an a.s.set and so, I humbly believe, is the pure devotion of a good man's heart. These count for something, or used to do so when I was your age. But then the women of my generation were educated in a less sophisticated school. You modern young persons are wiser than we were no doubt, in that you are less romantic, less easily touched.--I have not ventured to give Marshall much encouragement. It would have been on my conscience to foster hopes which might be dashed.

And yet I own, darling child, your manner not once nor twice, during our happy meetings at the Pavilion, when he read aloud to us or sang, gave me the impression you were not entirely indifferent. He, I know, has thought so too--for I have not been able to resist letting him pour out his hopes and fears to me now and then. I could not refuse either him or myself that indulgence, because"--

Mrs. Frayling rose, and, bending over our much tried and now positively flabbergasted damsel, brushed her hair with a b.u.t.terfly kiss.

"Because my own hopes were also not a little engaged," she said. "Your manner to my poor Marshall, your willingness to let him so often be with you made me--perhaps foolishly--believe not only that his sad life might be crowned by a signal blessing, but you might be given to me some day as a daughter of whom I could be intensely proud. I have grown to look upon Marshall in the light of a son, and his wife would"--

Damaris had risen also. She stood at bay, white, strained, her lips quivering.

"Do--do you mean that I have behaved badly to Mr. Wace, Henrietta? That I have flirted with him?"

Mrs. Frayling drew her mouth into a naughty little knot. There were awkward corners to be negotiated in these questions. She avoided them by boldly striking for the open.

"Oh! it is natural, perfectly natural at your rather thoughtless time of life. Only Marshall's admiration for you is very deep. He has the poetic temperament which makes for suffering, for despair as well as for rapture. And his disillusionments, poor boy, have been so grievously many.--But Colonel Carteret--yes--dearest child, I do quite follow.--It's an old story. He has always had _des bonnes fortunes_."

Since her return to Europe, Mrs. Frayling had become much addicted to embellishing her conversation with such foreign tags, not invariably, it may be added, quite correctly applied or quoted.

"Women could never resist him in former days in India. They went down before his charms like a row of ninepins before a ball. I don't deny a pa.s.sing _tendresse_ for him myself, though I was married and very happily married. So I can well comprehend how he may take a girl's fancy by storm. _Sans peur et sans reproche_, he must seem to her.--And so in the main, I dare say, he is. At worst a little easy-going, owing to his cultivation of the universally benevolent att.i.tude. Charity has a habit of beginning at home, you know; and a man usually views his own delinquencies at least as leniently as he views those of others. But that leniency is part of his charm--which I admit is great.--Heaven forbid, I should undermine your faith in it, if there is anything settled between you and him."

"But there isn't, there isn't," Damaris broke in, distressed beyond all calmness of demeanour. "You go too fast, Henrietta. You a.s.sume too much. Nothing is settled of--of that sort. Nothing of that sort has ever been said."

Mrs. Frayling raised her eyebrows, cast down her eyes, and fingered the bunch of trinkets hanging from her gold chain in silence for a few seconds. The ring of sincerity was unquestionable--only where did that land her? Had not she, in point of fact, very really gone too fast? In defeat Henrietta became unscrupulous.

"Merely another flirtation, Damaris?" she said. "Darling child, I am just a wee bit disappointed in you."