The Oyster Part 21

"Oh, we couldn't afford children," she said, flinging a wistful note in her voice. And one not altogether feigned, for as she spoke she remembered the boy who was growing strong in the nursery at Grosvenor Square.

"Mrs Gresham," announced the maid.

"I'd no idea it was a party." Colonel Carteret looked at his black clothes and spoke reproachfully.

"It wasn't. Dollie Gresham was not asked, uncle."

Dollie made it plain in a minute. She knew Esme was at home; she'd asked the maid and she came along.

"It's about a bazaar, Esme. I want someone to help me to get one up for that new little hospital. Denise Blakeney would help Susie Handelle.

We'd run it, you and I."

Through an elaborate, expensive lunch old Colonel Carteret was almost silent. The _vol au vent_ of truffled chicken had given way for forced fruit before Estelle got him to talk to her. He thawed before her gentle voice, a shy, troubled old man, numbed still by his loss. His boys had been his all. He could not realize that they had left him. He had saved, planned, improved for Cyril and George; now mechanically, because the places were there, he carried it on. He had seen very little of Esme; until his boys' deaths he had been wrapped up in them, never mixing in Society. Now he looked at the expensive flowers in Venetian gla.s.ses; he tasted elaborate made dishes, forced fruits, ices, and once or twice he shook his head as if at some inward thoughts.

Dollie Gresham chattered of her bazaar. It was just the time for one, they would start it at once. Restlessly energetic, she went to the telephone after luncheon, rang up Denise Blakeney.

"Yes, Denise will help sell. Only think, Esme"--this after a long pause--"Sir Cyril's given her another car, and that diamond pendant of old Lady Gilby's, you know, the one he was selling. Since that boy came"--Dollie hung up the receiver--"Denise gets all she wants, and a great deal more. She is simply, tiresomely happy, adores dear Cyril, and has a convenient memory for the past. _Tiens_, such is life."

Esme's face was set, sullen, as she listened. Denise had everything.

Denise was not generous; there were so many things which she could have given, yet the very tie between the two women seemed to destroy their old friendship.

In the flower-decked, richly-furnished little drawing-room old Hugh Carteret talked to Estelle. He looked bewildered, puzzled.

"Bertie told me they were not rich," he said. "Yet the place seems to me to be almost too luxurious, that they lack nothing."

"I think"--Estelle fidgeted a little, her grey eyes distressed--"that Esme is very young, that she perhaps grasps at things, so to speak, perhaps spends a little more than she ought to."

"I am a judge of wines." Hugh Carteret nodded. "The hock was one of the best, the old brandy cost fourteen or fifteen shillings a bottle, the port was vintage. I tasted them all." He shook his head again.

Esme, coming in, sat by him, tried every trick she knew of winning glance and smile. But her childish charm had left her; she could only hark back to her poverty, to her want of money, and each half-veiled appeal left the old man silent.

"You present-day women want too much," he said quietly. "You won't be content. You live too much for yourselves; if you had children now"--he stopped, his voice breaking. "I tell you what," he said, "if you are really hard up you can have Cliff End rent free. It's lovely there, close to the sea, and the staghounds to hunt with."

Esme knew where it was, an old house croaking on the cliffs of Devon, near a country town, a place without society, without amus.e.m.e.nts. She shivered.

"It would be too big for us," she said, trying to speak gratefully.

"Far too large to keep up; but thank you greatly, dear uncle."

"And too far from shopland," he said in his shy, shrewd way. "Yes, well, my dear, it was a mere idea."

"He'll do nothing for us, old miser," Esme flung out in anger almost before the old man had left. "He is hateful, Bertie, your old uncle."

"Perhaps, looking round him, he does not think there is much to be done," said Bertie, drily. "I am very fond of old Uncle Hugh."

They drove up to Grosvenor Gate, strolled into the Park--the April day had tempted people out there; the beds were a glory of wall-flowers and spring bulbs. A green limousine, purring silently, pulled up close to them. Esme turned swiftly; it held Lady Blakeney and the nurse, who carried an elaborately-dressed bundle of babyhood.

"Wait here." Denise, jumping out lightly, ran across to speak to friends. She was radiant, brilliant in her happiness, a woman without sufficient brain to feel remorse.

"Oh, Mrs Stanson, let me see him."

Esme went to the side of the car; she had not dared lately to go up to the nursery at Grosvenor Square. Denise had forbidden it.

Mrs Stanson got down, holding the rosy, healthy boy; he chuckled, his blue eyes blinking, a picture of contented, soft-fleshed, mindless life. His mittened fingers closed round Esme's as she looked into his face. Hers this healthy atom--hers, and Denise was rich, happy, contented because of him, while she, his mother, wanted everything.

"What a lovely mite." Bertie Carteret bent over the smiling baby. "He's got eyes of your colour, Esme, true forget-me-nots."

"Yes. You do mind him well, nurse. Her ladyship--"

"It was great coaxing to get her ladyship to bring him out to-day," the woman said carelessly. "She's not like you, Mrs Carteret; she doesn't like these small things."

"Oh, yes, Esme"--Denise came back--"looking at the Baa. He's a fine specimen, isn't he? Cyril gives him this car for himself, and a new one to me. Come and see me soon, won't you? Lancaster Gate, Hillyard--Lady Mary Graves's house. Bundle in that infant, Mrs Stanson, and if he cries I get out."

The car glided on. Esme watched it going, with a sullen anger at her heart; she had to clench her hands to keep quiet. Did Denise never think? Had she no grat.i.tude--no conscience--no regret for her successful fraud? None, it would seem.

"Esme, you look quite white." Dollie Gresham's spiteful little giggle rang out close by. "Are you coming on to play bridge with me?"

"Not to-day, Dollie. I've a shocking headache. I'll go home and rest."

"It must be bad," said Dollie, "to take you to your fireside. Was the sight of that wonderful son and heir too much for you?--that Bayard among babies? _Sans peur et sans reproche._"

"You do look seedy, child." Bertie took Esme to the gate and drove her back.

She lighted the gas stove--the flat teemed in labour-saving annoyances--and sat by it, the heat making the perfume of the flowers almost overpowering.

Bertie got her hot tea, sat with her, some of the old loving comradeship springing up between them.

"That little chap made me envious, Es," he said, after a long silence.

"Bertie--surely you wouldn't like a child?" Esme's voice rang shrilly.

"Surely you wouldn't. Coming to disturb us, crippling us!"

"People manage," he said slowly. "They manage. We could have gone out of London, lived more quietly. Every man wants his son, b.u.t.terfly; they are selfish people, you know."

"You'd like one?" The shrillness died out of Esme's voice, it grew strained.

"And after all better spend money on a little chap than waste it on Holbrook's wines and old brandies," he said. "Yes, it's the one thing I've wanted, Es--just to make our lives perfect. Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe; marriage is never quite right until the third comes to show a selfish pair what their fathers and mothers gave up for them."

"I thought two people were so much happier alone." Esme stared into the glowing, companionless fire, with no crackle of coal or hiss of wood, but the modern maid objects to blacking grates.

"Well, sweetheart, some day you'll know better," he said, "perhaps."

The maid brought in the evening paper, laying it on the table.

"Esme!" Bertie Carteret jumped up. "Young De Vinci is dead--dead of pneumonia."

Death of the Earl of De Vinci on the eve of his marriage. Then Esme caught the paper. "Is Uncle Hugh next heir--didn't you tell me so?"

"Uncle Hugh is Lord De Vinci, and if he does not marry again, a remote contingency, I'm the next heir. A son, Esme, is a necessity now."

Esme put the paper down. Her son, heir to a t.i.tle, was at Sir Cyril Blakeney's house and she could not claim him.