The Moon out of Reach Part 53

"DEAR ROGER,--Have gone to town. Stopping with Penelope.--NAN."

Afterwards she packed with gleeful hands. It seemed too good to be true that in twenty-four hours she would actually find herself back in London--away from this gloomy, tree-girdled house with its depressing atmosphere both outside and in, away from Lady Gertrude's scathing tongue and Isobel's two-edged speeches, and, above all, secure for a time from Roger's tumultuous love-making and his unuttered demand for so much more than she could ever give him.

She craved for the rush and bustle of London, for the play that might keep her from thinking, the music which should minister to her soul, and, more than all, she longed to see the beloved familiar faces--to see Penelope and Ralph and Lord St. John. She felt as though for the last three months she had been dwelling in some dreadful unknown world, with only boy Sandy to cling to out of the whole unnerving chaos.

"You blessed child! I _am_ glad to see you!"

Penelope, looking the happiest and most blooming of youthful matrons, was on the platform when the Cornish express steamed into Waterloo station and Nan alighted from it. The two girls embraced warmly.

"You can't--you can't possibly be as glad as I am, Penny mine,"

returned Nan. "Hmf!"--wrinkling up her nose. "_How_ nice London smells!"

Penelope burst out laughing. Nan nodded at her seriously.

"I mean it. You've no idea how good that smoky, petrolly smell is after the innocuous breezes of the country. It's full of gorgeous suggestions of cars and people and theatres and--and life!"

They hurried to the other end of the platform where the porters were disinterring the luggage from the van and dumping it down on the platform with a splendid disregard for the longevity of the various trunks and suit-cases they handled. Nan's attendant porter quickly extricated her baggage from the motley pile, and very soon she and Penelope were speeding away from the station as fast as their chauffeur--whose apparent recklessness was fortunately counter-balanced by consummate skill--could take them.

"How nice and familiar it all looks," said Nan, as the car granted up the Haymarket. "And it's heavenly to be going back to the dear old flat. Whereabouts are you looking for a house, by the way?"

"Somewhere in Hampstead, we think, where the air--and the rents!--are more salubrious than nearer in."

"Of course." Nan nodded. "All singers live at Hampstead. You'd be quite unfashionable if you didn't. I suppose you and Ralph are frightfully busy?"

"Yes. But we're free to-night, luckily. So we can yarn to our hearts'

content. To-morrow evening we're both singing at the Albert Hall.

And, oh, in the afternoon we're going to tea at Maryon's studio. His new picture's on view--private, of course."

"What new picture?"

"His portrait of the famous American beauty, Mrs. T. Van Decken. I believe she paid a fabulous sum for it; Maryon's all the rage now, you know. So he asked us to come down and see it before it's shipped off to New York. By the way, he enquired after you in his letter--I've got it with me somewhere. Oh, yes, here it is! He says: '_What news have you of Nan? I've lost sight of her since her engagement. But now it seems likely I shall be seeing her again before any of you_.' I can't think what he means by that."

"Nor I," said Nan, somewhat mystified. "But anyway," she added, smiling, "he will be seeing me even sooner than he antic.i.p.ates. How has his marriage turned out?"

Penelope laughed.

"Very much as one might have expected. They live most amicably--apart!"

"They've surely not quarrelled already?"

"Oh, no, they've not quarrelled. But of course they didn't fit into each other's scheme of life one bit, and they've re-arranged matters to suit their own convenience. She's in the south of France just now, and when she comes to town they'll meet quite happily and visit at each other's houses. She has a palatial sort of place in Mayfair, you know, while Maryon has a duck of a house in Westminster."

"How very modern!" commented Nan, smiling. "And--how like Maryon!"

"Just like him, isn't it? And"--drily--"it was just like him, too, to see that the marriage settlement arrangements were all quite water-tight. However, on the whole, it's a fair bargain between them.

She rejoices in the honour and glory of being a well-known artist's wife, while he has rather more money than is good for him."

Ralph, broadened out a bit since his successful trip to America, was on the steps of the Mansions to welcome them, and the lift conveyed them all three up to the flat--the dear, home-like flat of which Nan felt she loved every inch.

"You're in your old room," Penelope told her, and Nan gave vent to a crow of delight.

Dinner was a delightful meal, full of the familiar gossip of the artistes' room, and the news of old friends, and fervent discussions on matters musical and artistic, with running through it all a ripple of humour and the cheery atmosphere of camaraderie and good-fellowship.

When it was over, the three drew cosily together round the fire in Ralph's den. Nan sank into her chair with a blissful sigh.

"That's not a sigh of repletion, Penny," she explained. "Though really your cook might have earned it? . . . But oh! _isn't_ this nice?"

Inwardly she was reflecting that at just about this time Roger, together with Lady Gertrude and Isobel, would be returning from Great-aunt Rachel's funeral, only to learn of her own flight from Trenby Hall.

"Yes," agreed Penelope. "It really was angelic of Roger to spare you at a moment's notice."

Nan gave a grim little smile.

"You dear innocent! Roger--didn't know--I was coming."

"What!"

"No, I just thought I'd come . . . and he--they were all away . . . and I came! I left a note behind, telling him I was going to stay with you. So he won't be anxious!"

"Roger didn't know you were coming!" repeated Penelope. "Nan"--a sudden light illuminating the dark places--"have you had a quarrel?"

"Yes"--shortly. "A sort of quarrel."

"And you came straight off here? . . . Oh, Nan, what a fool's trick!

He will be furious!"

Once or twice Penelope had caught a glimpse of that hot-headed temper which lay hidden beneath Roger's somewhat blunt exterior.

"Lady Gertrude will be furious!" murmured Nan reminiscently.

"I think she'll have the right to be," answered Penelope, with quiet rebuke in her tones. "It really was abominable of you to run away like that."

Nan shrugged her shoulders, and Ralph looked across at her, smiling broadly.

"You're a very exasperating young person, Nan," he said. "If you were going to be my wife, I believe I should beat you."

"Well, that would at least break the monotony of things," she retorted.

But her lips set themselves in a straight, hard, line at the remembrance of Roger's stormy threat: "I might even do that."

"Is it monotony you're suffering from?" asked Ralph quickly.

She nodded.

"I'm fed up with the country and its green fields--never anything but green fields! They're so eternally, _d.a.m.nably_ green!"

"Oh, Nan! And the scenery in Cornwall is perfectly lovely!" protested Penelope feebly.