The Oyster Part 18

"A cold has he? I think I heard him sniff?"

"Yes, he's had a cold," Sir Cyril said. "He was quite feverish. Denise is not a nursery bird, I fear."

"And you've been dining off gold plate at the Holbrooks, Esme. I wouldn't go. Cyril and I went for a few last days with the Quorn. Cyril bought me such a lovely mare, all quality. Ah, here is Sue." Lady Susan Almorni was not a friend of Esme's. Denise seemed to be leaving her smart friends, to be settling among the duller, greater people.

"Bertie will be home to-morrow. I want to leave the flat, to come more west. It's poky, horribly stuffy. If--we could afford to." Esme crumbled her toast, looked almost sullenly at Denise.

"But could you? And it's such a dear little flat. Could you afford it, Esme dear? You are so comfy there."

The butler brought in the evening papers. Before they settled to play bridge Sir Cyril opened them.

"Why, Mrs Carteret," he said, "this is awful about your cousins surely.

The two Carteret boys have both been killed in a motor accident. It makes Bertie heir, I suppose, but what a tragedy."

Esme caught at the paper and read it feverishly. "To the t.i.tle," she said. "It's entailed. Hugh Carteret can leave his money as he chooses--unless we have children." But she knew what a difference it must make.

"You'll have to follow my example and have an heir now," laughed Denise. "To make it all certain. Eh, Esme?"

Esme sat with the paper in her hands and did not answer.

CHAPTER VII

Spring rioting, chill and bleak, crushing the coming summer in its impish hands. A day when cold came creeping under doors, sat even by the fire and would not be denied.

Looking into her draped gla.s.s Esme was struck by new lines in her face, by a loss of her dazzling youth, by a tired look in her eyes.

Discontent, weariness, were writing their names on her skin.

Bertie would be home early. She had been lazy and not gone to the ship to meet him. He was coming to breakfast, the fires were smouldering in the sitting-room, the new housemaid reasonably desirous of "gaus."

Esme, in her prettiest wrapper, shivered and grew irritable. She had ordered an elaborate breakfast, but the new cook was a failure; the fish was sodden, the bacon half raw, the hot bread mere heated bakers'

scones.

Esme recalled the breakfasts at Coombe Regis, at Harlands. She flung out at the maids. Ordered new dishes angrily. Oh, it was hateful not to have things right. Her old gaiety had left her. She would have laughed a year ago and boiled eggs on a spirit lamp. Bertie at last, running up, catching her in his arms, holding her close.

"Esme, my dear old b.u.t.terfly. My sweetheart. Oh, it's good to be back again here with you. Breakfast, Es, I'm starving."

So big and boyish and loving. She clung to him and found discontent even there. She had cheated her man. There was a secret to be hidden from him for ever. And where were all the comforts she had dreamt of with her income? Where were they?

"Breakfast." Esme rang the bell.

"Cook is grilling the bacon, mem. It will take ten minutes." So Bertie had to wait, and then eat cold eggs and burnt bacon, and drink stewed tea. But he was happy.

"Extravagance," he said. "My silken-winged b.u.t.terfly, that's a new gown of fluff and laces."

"You don't expect me to have all last year's, do you?" Esme almost snapped, then leant against him. He held her closely, loving the warm suppleness of her body, the scent of her burnished hair, his lips were hot on the satin smoothness of her skin.

"But, Es sweetheart, you're thinner," he whispered, "and looking sadly.

We'll have a week away, just you and I, in Paris. You must be rich now with no house all this winter."

Esme slipped away from him and fidgeted as she lighted a cigarette.

"Oh, Bertie, you've seen about the accident. You're heir now."

"The place is entailed," he said. "It's worth nothing. But the old man's money is his own. He may leave it to me. If we had a boy he might, no doubt he would."

Esme flushed scarlet, turning away. The cold day grew colder. Try as she would, the old happy intimacy, their careless happy youth, would not come back. Before, she had told Bertie everything. Now if he knew, if he knew.

Her husband seemed to have grown older, graver, to be less boyish. He talked of one or two things as extravagant. They discussed Aldershot and he spoke of lodgings. Houses were impossible there.

Esme grew petulant. Lodgings, she had seen them. Chops for dinner and cold meat and salad for lunch. They must find a house. They'd heaps of money.

They went out to luncheon, telephoned a table at the Berkeley, ordered their favourite dishes recklessly. Esme came down in the Paris coat, open to show the blue and silver lining.

"b.u.t.terfly! What a coat," her husband exclaimed at its beauty. "Where did you get it?"

Esme hesitated, told half the truth.

"Denise gave it to me," she said slowly. "You see I did a lot for her."

Bertie was his old self then, foolishly merry. They must go up Bond Street and order a limousine to go with the coat. It couldn't sit in taxis. When it was off in the restaurant he saw the cunning beauty of a Paris frock, a black one, the old pendant of emeralds gleaming against real lace.

It was too cold, too bitter to walk about. They rang up friends, played bridge. Esme ordered dinner at the flat, asked Dolly to come down and bring a man, then telephoned imperiously to the new cook.

"Dinner for four, order what you want. It must be nice, remember. It must be. Get some forced things, sweets, have salmon. Use your wits."

"It is a dear little hole. I'll be sorry to leave it," Bertie said, as they came back to the brightly-lighted little drawing-room. "Why do you want to, girlie?"

"It's so out of the way," Esme grumbled.

The new maid put her into a dress of clinging black. One must mourn for first cousins.

Dolly was full of curiosity. Bertie was heir now. It was quite a change. "So nice, dear Esme, to come to one of your wonderful little dinners again."

The only wonder of this dinner was its expense. The new cook had gone to Harrod's stores, chosen everything which cost money. Tinned turtle soup, plain boiled salmon, tinned and truffled entree, tinned chicken, and a bought sweet.

Esme grew angrier as it went on. Hated the guests' lack of appet.i.te, their polite declaimers as she abused her food.

"I begin to hate this place," Esme stormed to Dolly. "It's too small, good servants won't come here. Hardness was a good chance. She's gone to Denise Blakeney now, she can afford to pay her what she wanted, I couldn't."

Cards too went against Esme. She lost and lost again, made declarations which depended on luck, and found it desert her. They did not play for high points, but she made side bets, and it mounted up. She cut with Bertie, saw his eyebrows raise as she went a reckless no trumper.

"My dear, what had you got?" he asked.

"Oh, a king and ace. I expected something above a ten from you, Bertie."