The Oyster Part 3

"And then"--Denise Blakeney lighted another cigarette--"then, my Esme, you might pray for the child you want--in vain."

She got up, her weak mouth set slackly, her blue eyes shining.

"Es--I'm in mortal fear--fear of Cyril."

Esme stopped crying to listen.

"He'll divorce me," said Denise, dully. "He's off to Central Africa or somewhere now, but I know he means to, and what troubles you is the one thing which would save me. He told me once that if his wife had children he would never disgrace their mother. He meant it. Cyrrie says very little, and he means it all. He's so quiet, Es, so big. I'm afraid!"

"But surely," Esme queried, "there's no evidence?"

"Oh! evidence!" Denise shrugged her shoulders. "I've been reckless lately, Es--a fool. I've stayed with those Bellew people near Ascot.

I've been a fool with Jerry; he was such a boy that I was too open; being very little harm in it, I judged the opinion of onlookers by my own feelings; and Cyrrie's found out. He knows the mad things I've done. The boy was so proud of being my belonging--bah! I know! I can see Cyrrie look at me with a threat behind his eyes. Think of it, Esme!

The disgrace! Those vile papers reporting; poor Jerry defending; and then the after life. Oh! if one could only see in time. If I had stopped to think two years ago--it may be too late now. I've been absolutely making love to Cyrrie lately, and he looks at me with such a smile on his big face. You see, there's the t.i.tle--it's as old as the world, almost--and all the money; and we have no heir; that vexes Cyrrie horribly. He'll get rid of me and marry Anne Bellairs, his cousin, a great, healthy, bovine country girl, while I sit in outer darkness and gnash my teeth."

"Oh, Denise! Oh! if we could change--" Esme's voice rang so shrilly that Lady Blakeney dropped her cigarette and picked it up again from the skirt of her rich white dress.

"Esme," she said, "it's burnt a hole in it. Heavens! yes! if we could!"

She threw away the cigarette. "If we could!"

In her heart she knew she ought to tell Esme not to be foolishly hysterical. Talk quietly and soothe her. Instead, with her eyes alight, she fed the flame of the fear of loss of fun. Talked of how a baby was a nuisance in London, of how much they cost.

"If you could give me yours," she said, "and pretend that it was mine.

Lord! what a difference it would make for me."

Esme sat staring at her, puzzled.

"Oh! I suppose it's too melodramatic to think of," Denise said, getting up. "It's still pouring, and I'm going home. We have people to dinner to-night. Cheer up, dear."

She left Esme sitting brooding alone; she had been so happy with her husband; there was just enough--enough for amus.e.m.e.nt, for entertaining mildly, for paying visits. Her pretty face won many friends; people were kind to so pleasant a guest.

"Oh! I can't afford it! I'd love to go!" and then someone found an outsider at ten to one, or a stock which was safe to rise, and someone else sent wine at wholesale prices; someone else fruit and flowers.

They were such a merry pair; they ought to enjoy themselves, was the world's verdict.

Esme knew the value of smiles; in shops, in Society they were current coinage to her. She did not want to be tied, to have to weary over a something more important than she was.

"If we could only change," said Esme, dolefully. "Denise quite sees how it will spoil everything."

"Call a taxi, Marie. I'll go to the club to tea."

Denise went to pay some calls, and then to her house in Grosvenor Square. The scent of flowers drifted from the hall; she loved to fill it with anything sweet. The butler handed her her letters as she pa.s.sed--invitations, notes.

She went into her boudoir at the back of the drawing-room, a nest of blue, background for her fair beauty, with flowers everywhere.

Denise shivered; she was a Someone--a well-known hostess in society; a personage in her way; she went to dull house-parties, where royalty was entertained; and she yawned sorely but yet was glad to go. Where one ate simple food and had to smoke in the conservatories, because a very great lady was an advocate for simplicity.

"And if--if--" her fears were not unfounded.

Denise knew what it would mean. A few loyal friends writing kindly letters before they slipped away from her. Cold, evasive nods from people who would not cut her; the delighted, uplifted noses of the people she had ignored.

A hole-and-corner marriage somewhere with young Jerry, who was already wearying of his chains; a marriage reft of all things which makes marriage a joy. Life in some poky place abroad or in the country, received on sufferance or not at all.

Denise flung out her hands as if to ward off an enemy. She heard her husband coming in; his heavy step on the stairs; his deep, even voice.

"Her ladyship in? Yes? A message from Lord Hugh Landseer; wished Sir Cyril to lunch there to-morrow to discuss guns, etc. Yes. Dinner at eight or half-past? At eight-fifteen? The champagne? Better have two sorts out, Lady St Clare didn't like Bollinger."

There was a cool reserve of strength in Cyril Blakeney's trivial words; he thought slowly, spoke slowly, but seldom idly. He was a man who could wait. Wait for a day which he believed would be good, wait for a young dog which he thought might improve. "Give him a year--we'll see then." And if at the end of the time the setter was still hopeless, he was not seen again. Cyril Blakeney would not sell a dog to be beaten into submission--and the end was swift and painless. A vicious horse, a bad jumper, went the same way. People did not dispute his opinions; if they could not agree they listened to the arguments and wondered at their quiet shrewdness.

Denise heard the heavy step go on; he did not come into her boudoir.

She went up herself, fidgeting over her dresses, coming down at last in shimmering opal satin, a crown of pearls in her soft hair, pearls at her throat, and in the lace on her bodice one pear-shaped and pink.

Stanley, her maid, had fastened it in, picking it out of several jewels.

Denise looked at them and shivered again. Her diamonds were magnificent, but they were not hers; they were heirlooms of the Blakeneys; she thought of the old house in Yorkshire, big, heavy, solid as her husband himself; full of carved panels, of cold, stately rooms; a home which Cyril delighted in. She dreaded the keen moorland air, the loneliness of the country; but they spent the winter there hunting and shooting; and she knew how Cyril longed for a boy to come after him.

"That will do, Stanley. What do you say?--That I told you to remind me of new dresses for Stranray Park. Yes. Anything will do for the mornings, and tea-gowns are forbidden; but I'll want six evening gowns.

Oh! Cyrrie!"

Catch of nervousness in her voice; she met her husband on the stairs; put out a hand and touched his arm. Quietly he lifted it, held it out, and laid it lightly where her wedding ring gleamed behind a blaze of diamonds.

"Had a pleasant day?" he asked.

Denise recounted it almost eagerly. The big man listened, held her hand still as they came to the drawing-room.

"And you gave up Ranelagh--stayed talking to Esme Carteret." She saw him smile finely. "Friends, Denise, to waste an afternoon. I was at Ranelagh and missed you. Dollie Maynard told me she left you just starting. I wondered where you were. Oh! here is Elsie."

They were a merry little party of four, taking an evening off until it was time for one or two b.a.l.l.s.

Elsie St Clare, her husband, and a Baron de Reville.

Denise was a charming hostess; she knew how to order a dinner; there was no hint of the fluttering wings of trouble as the four talked and laughed.

"Stanley would not let me rest in peace to-night," she said, "she reminded me of Stranray in October. Cyril will not be there; it will be worse than ever. No smoking there after dinner," laughed Denise, "and it all seems standing up and taking the weather's temperature with our tongues; we are so bored we talk of nothing else. And H.R.H. likes the Stranray babies down to breakfast. One of them upset an egg over her one day, on purpose; they are outwardly mild, and inwardly demons. And when we are not out we work, because it looks domestic. I put three st.i.tches in last time, because I saw eyes upon me. I shall never forget the day we found the three babies playing when we came in. Jinnie, the eldest, gravely smoking paper cigarettes. Just as state entry was made, she shrieked out:

"'That's when they're gone to bed; that's what we do. _I_ saw over the bannisters. Now you're so loud, Nettie; and you, Tim, you say thank goodness.' But H.R.H. was quite nice about it; and only laughed and kissed them all.

"'I expect it's what you all do and say,' she said, and kissed Nettie again."

"I shall disport myself at Swords," Elsie St Clare laughed. "I couldn't stand the strain of behaving perfectly for a week. Prince Wilhelm goes to you at White Friars some time, doesn't he?"

"Next spring for the races," said Denise. "But she's a dear, and if you give her a chair to sleep in she bothers no one; the only thing which worries her is that Wilhelm will play the bridge game.

"'It ha.s.s my orphanage ruined,' she told me last time."

After dinner they played bridge. Denise forgot her fears a little, though her luck was against her; she could not hold a card.

"How I hate paying you, Cyrrie," she said, laughing, as she took gold from her purse.

"Women always hate the day of reckoning." Something in his quiet voice made her heart thump. "The game is full of excitement, but it must end--and your s.e.x dislikes the ending."