The Oyster Part 28

Esme bent over him, crooning to him, her motherhood awake. Now she knew her madness. For this was hers, and she would have sent him away to breathe fresh air and grow into a big, strong man like Bertie.

"It's a pity, mem, you haven't got one." The nurse lifted up the fretful child.

"It is--a pity." Esme's face was white and strained, the two patches of rouge standing out; she looked grey, old. "Oh, it is a pity, nurse,"

she swayed.

"Laws! Mrs Carteret, you're ill. It's this cruel heat. Sit you there, and I'll run in for salts or a little sal volatile."

"No." Esme recovered herself. "No, nurse, thank you. It's only the heat. Well, take care of him; and better not tell her ladyship that I came over. She never likes my looking at the boy."

Esme knew now--she knew what a fool she had been. How, s.n.a.t.c.hing at her ease, her comfort, her enjoyment, she had lost the boy who brought love with him. There was nothing to be done, nothing to be said; she dared not tell at this stage. Bertie would never forgive her. She might even be denied, disproved, by some jugglery.

She went heavily homewards, walking on the hot pavement.

An electric limousine flashed by her; a smiling face bowed, a white-gloved hand was waved. Denise was going home to luncheon. Bond Street again, less crowded now. Esme saw a girl jump lightly from a taxi, turn to smile at someone inside. It was Sybil Chauntsey; the taxi pa.s.sed Esme and pulled up; she saw Jimmie Gore Helmsley get out.

Where had these two been so early? They had got out separately, as if concealment were necessary. What a fool the girl was! What a fool!

Esme hailed a taxi; she was lunching at the Ritz, had asked three friends there. Bah! it would cost so much, and be over and forgotten in an hour.

With a smile set on a weary face, Esme drove on. She would s.n.a.t.c.h at amus.e.m.e.nt more greedily than ever!

At eight in the morning a great London station is fully awake, but not yet stifling and noisy; the cool air of the night still lurks about the platforms; the gla.s.s has not got hot; the early people are cool themselves.

Bertie was up early so as to call for Estelle; his taxi sped to the quiet square where her aunt lived. A gloomy place, with tall houses standing in formidable respectability, where grave old butlers opened doors, and broughams and victorias still came round to take their owners for an airing.

Estelle was on the doorstep, cool and fresh, one of the few people who can get up early without looking sleepy.

They flew to Devonshire.

"First cla.s.s!" Estelle frowned as she saw her ticket. "Oh, Captain Carteret!"

"This is my day," he pleaded. "To be economical travelling one must be economical in company. Come along."

They had an empty carriage; going down to the restaurant for breakfast--a little gritty as train breakfasts are, but excellent.

London slipped away; they ran past lush meadows, past placid streams, old farmhouses sheltered by trees. The countryside was alive with busy workers. Steel knives cut the gra.s.s and laid it in fragrant swathes.

Steel teeth tossed it up through the hot, dry air. It was perfect weather for saving hay, for gathering the early harvest. The earth gives to us living, takes our clay to its heart when our spirits have left it.

The heat mists swept up slowly from the world; fairy vapours floating heavenwards until the summer's day was clear in its sunlit beauty; and they tore into far Devon with the salt breath of the sea in the faint wind.

A dogcart met them at the station; a short drive, with the sea pulsing far below them, brought them to Cliff End. An old house standing amid a blaze of flowers, it was its owner's whim to have it kept up as if he were living there. There were quaintly-shaped rooms, with windows flung wide. Estelle ran through them, getting her first glimpse of a true English home, while Bertie went over accounts and did his business.

The housekeeper, a smiling dame, appeared breathlessly just as he came in.

She was ashamed not to be there to meet them, but old bones moved slowly; she had been down to the Home Farm to see a sick child there.

"We'm right glad to see your good lady at last," she smiled at Estelle, holding out a wrinkled hand. Mrs Corydon was a privileged friend of the family.

"Not my good lady," Bertie said hurriedly, "a friend, Mrs Corydon." But his face changed suddenly; he grew red.

Man is a being dependent on his dinner; their late luncheon was perfect of its kind. Grilled trout, chicken, Devonshire cream, and strawberries.

"It's such a glorious old place." Estelle looked round the panelled room. "If one could live here one could be happy simply being alive."

"Some people could," he said quietly. "Esme would die of boredom in a week."

"Of boredom, with those flowers outside, with the sea crooning so close," she said.

"But in winter," he answered, "there are no flowers, and the sea would roar."

"Then there would be fires," said Estelle, "and hunting, and books; and always fresh air. I stifle in London."

The day was a long joy to her, so deep it might have made her pause to think.

They went to the hayfields, breathing in the scent of the fragrant gra.s.s; tossing it themselves, foolish, as children might have done; wandering off to the river where it whispered between rocky banks. A stretch of golden brown and silver clear, of dark shadow and plashing ripple, green-hued where the long weeds stretched their plumes beneath the water, eddying, swirling, gliding, until it spread out upon Trelawney Bay, and wandered lost amongst the sands, looking for the sea. Great ferns grew among the rocks; dog roses tangled in the hedges; sometimes a feeding trout would break a flat with his soft ploop-ploop as he sucked down the fly; or smaller fish would fling and plash in shallow places, making believe that they were great creatures as they fed.

Bertie had asked for the tea to be sent out to them. It came in a basket, and they lighted a spirit lamp, laying it out close to the shimmering sea.

Mrs Corydon had sent down wonderful cakes, splits and nun's puffs, and a jar of the inevitable cream. It was a feast eaten by two fools who forgot human nature.

They gave the basket to the boy, wandered on to the cliffs. Here, with a meadow rippling in waves of green behind them, they sat down. It was cooler now. They sat in the shade of a high bank with the blue, diamond-spangled water far below, emerald-hued and indigo, where it lapped in shadow by the cliff. With the salt scent of it mingling with the scent of gra.s.s and flowers and hot sun-baked turf. Gulls wheeled screaming softly. They were quite alone in the glory of the country.

Estelle, a little tired, lay back against the bank, dropped suddenly asleep; her slender browned hands lay close to Bertie; as she moved her head came almost against his shoulder, so that to make her more comfortable he moved a little to support it.

A sudden thrill ran through him; her nearness, the touch of her cheek against his arm; her childish trust and abandon. The thrill was one of content followed by fear. What was he learning to feel for this girl from South Africa, this mere friend and companion?

"Companion? Had Esme ever been one?" Looking back he realized that there are two sorts of love; one when man is ruled by man alone, and one when pa.s.sion and friendship can walk hand in hand; a pair, once mated, whom death alone can part.

He recalled his first meeting with his wife, and how her brilliant beauty had allured him.

How she had taken his worship carelessly, as a thing of every day; and how always she had relied on her beauty as the natural power of woman without dreaming of any other. A touch of her round arms about his neck, a hot kiss--these were her arguments--arguments which, until lately, had never failed. If he talked of outside things she would pout and yawn, and bring him back to the centre of the world--her beauty.

"There were other girls; tell me about them; were they as pretty as I am, Bert?"

"Never--never!" he had to a.s.sure her. If he talked of the sunshine she would laugh and ask if it did not make her hair look red. Her hands, her feet, her fingers--she was never weary of having them praised. And yet she lacked the joy of losing herself in love; she had a merciless power of a.n.a.lysing emotion, because she did not feel it deeply herself.

In all his transports, Bertie knew there had been something missing; he had been the lover, she content to be loved.

The true companionship which can keep silence was never theirs.

Now, with the sea of gra.s.s waving behind them, and the sea crooning, crooning, so far below, the man was afraid. Was there a second sort of love, and had he missed the best thing in life?

He loved the clean airs of the country, sport of all kinds, a home to go to. Yet he must spend his days in close streets, in an eternal rush of entertainment and entertaining; to go home to a little portion of a great building, where he was merely one of the tenants of a flat.

If no one was coming, the little drawing-room was left bare of flowers, neglected. Esme said she could not afford them every day. If he came home to tea, an injured maid brought him a cup of cold stuff, probably warmed from the morning's teapot, with two slices of bread and b.u.t.ter on a plate.

This woman, sleeping so quietly, her long dark lashes lying on a sun-kissed cheek, would create a home, live in the quiet country, find companionship without eternal rushing about to her fellow-mortals; enjoy her month or two away, and then enjoy doubly the coming to her own home.