This House to Let Part 23

At any rate, for the present he was prepared to advance her five hundred pounds, and ask nothing but her friendship in return. It was an offer that she would have been a fool to refuse.

Presently she rose and went up to Mrs L'Estrange's bedroom. That sorely perturbed lady had risen, flung on a dressing-gown, and was reclining on a sofa.

"I can't sleep, I only fidget and fidget about," was the explanation.

"So I thought I might as well get up."

"Very wise," said Stella calmly. "You're a little bit too hysterical, you know. You should keep your nerves in order as I do mine."

"Not always," was the sarcastic rejoinder. "They go to pieces in thunderstorms and air-raids, don't they?"

"The exception proves the rule, my dear lady. Well, I haven't come up here to indulge in a sparring match. I have some very great news for you. Mr Spencer called this afternoon; he hasn't left me very long."

The elder woman became interested at once. "You don't mean to say he has asked you to marry him?"

Stella laughed. "No, he hasn't, although it will not be my fault if he doesn't later on. It seems Tommy Esmond called on him last night, and made a clean breast of his whole history."

Mrs L'Estrange frowned. "Then I think he was a great fool. Everybody, of course, will know what actually happened, that he was discovered cheating. But he need not go and tell him more than he would learn from general rumour."

Stella's face hardened a little. "You must make some allowances for him. He must have been in a terrible state of tension when he felt that his career was ended. He was so very proud, you know, of the position in society that he had won for himself. He must have felt like a man on the eve of execution. He was hardly responsible for his thoughts or actions. He is very highly-strung."

Mrs L'Estrange spoke more gently. "Yes, of course. I am sorry I said that, my dear. And after all, it doesn't make any difference how much he told or how little. The result to him is the same. And now for your great news, what are they? You say Spencer has not asked you to marry him."

Stella told her of Guy's suggestion, and her acceptance of it. "It is too good a chance to refuse. So, my dear, I shall have to leave you at the earliest possible moment."

It was some time before the elder woman seemed quite able to grasp it.

When she did, her astonishment seemed unbounded.

"Of all the strange things I have ever heard," she began, but Stella cut her short with a little mocking laugh.

"Not quite so strange when you think it quietly out," she said. "If he really knew anything about me, if I could produce a few respectable relatives, if I had some of your blue blood in my veins, he would have proposed this afternoon."

Mrs L'Estrange nodded her rather dishevelled head. "I think I see."

"He is very much in love with me," went on Stella quietly. "Anyway, so much so that he doesn't want to lose sight of me, while he is making up his mind. Hence his offer."

"But he could see you here."

Stella shook her head. "He would loathe this house after what occurred last night, and he thinks I am in an unholy set. He really is an awful dear, you know, so high-minded and upright. His great aim is to get me away from the environment."

Mrs L'Estrange settled herself comfortably amongst her sofa cushions.

She was an excitable and fussy person about trifles, but she took the great things of life with a calm and equal mind.

"Well, my dear, go as soon as it suits yourself. You have been a good pal to me, and I shall be sorry to lose you. But if you have got a decent chance you would be a fool not to take it."

Miss Keane was strongly of the same opinion. Anyway she was glad the interview was over, that Mrs L'Estrange had taken everything in such good part. She might have turned nasty if the mood had seized her.

Later on, Miss Keane wrote a long letter to Tommy Esmond to an address which he had communicated to her in his note of the morning.

The same evening, she held a long conversation with her cousin and trustee, Mr Dutton, who came to Elsinore Gardens in obedience to an urgent summons on the telephone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Lady Nina Spencer sat in the drawing-room of the big house in Carlton House Terrace, awaiting the few guests who had been invited to a small, informal dinner-party. Her father, very infirm for his years, sat opposite to her in a big easy-chair.

The Earl spoke in his low, quavering voice: "I have nothing to say against the woman herself, judging from what little we have seen of her.

She has very perfect manners, just a trifle too perfect. I can quite understand that for the average man she possesses considerable charm, and she has great good looks. Many people would call her beautiful.

But I can only repeat what I said on the day I received Guy's letter announcing his clandestine marriage: `The pity of it.'"

Lady Nina was a quiet, robust and practical young person, fond of looking facts in the face, and looking at them very squarely.

She had been as much shocked at her cousin's rash marriage as the Earl himself, but it was an accomplished fact. Only two courses were open: the first to have nothing more to do with Guy and his wife, the second to admit the wife to a guarded intimacy.

Lord Southleigh had declared warmly, in his first disgust, that he would never look upon his young kinsman's face again. But Nina had prevailed with milder counsels. Guy was his heir, and in the course of Nature would succeed to the family honours. They would not cut themselves adrift from him, and they must make up their minds to tolerate this wife, of whose antecedents he could give no satisfactory account. The one fact he did mention, that she was a cousin of Mrs L'Estrange, did not weigh much with them.

Mrs L'Estrange came of a fairly good family, so far as birth counted, but it was both impecunious and addicted to making unfortunate alliances. One of her sisters had run away with a good-looking young fellow who had been her father's valet. She was a woman who would have a good many undesirable relatives knocking about. Miss Stella Keane, the daughter of an impoverished Irishman, might well belong to this band of undesirables. More especially as Guy's statements about her antecedents were of the most bald and unsatisfactory nature.

It was all very sad and regrettable from every point of view, but, as Nina calmly pointed out, several young heirs to peerages had been running amok lately, in the matrimonial sense, and taking their wives from very questionable quarters. Guy might have married some coa.r.s.e and common creature from the music-halls. It was unfortunate, in a way, that he had a considerable fortune of his own, and could snap his fingers at the displeasure of his relatives, if they presumed to show it.

But, somehow, knowing Guy as well as she did, Nina did not believe that the future Countess of Southleigh, who would, in due course, wear the family jewels, was likely to be coa.r.s.e or common. Guy was too fastidious, too innately a gentleman, to be snared by a creature of that kind.

And, on her first introduction, the young wife made a much more favourable impression than might have been antic.i.p.ated, considering the prejudices arrayed against her.

She was not in the least servile or obsequious in the presence of these two very aristocratic persons, but she bore herself with a certain kind of shrinking modesty, as if asking pardon for having intruded into the family. Her att.i.tude to her husband appeared to be one of shy adoration, tempered with perfect good taste. Her deep affection for him, while not obtrusive or ostentatious, seemed to express itself in her tender glances, the soft cadences of her voice when she addressed him.

Nina made up her mind to one thing, that, if she was not genuinely and devotedly in love with him, she must be one of the most perfect actresses to be met with off the stage.

And Guy was still infatuated. When he had made her that strange offer, he knew that he was drifting, but he had still left some small remnant of self-control. But her fascination had proved too strong. Every day she wove the chains more strongly round him.

And then there came a time when absence from her was unbearable, when he took to counting the hours that elapsed between their next meeting. The end was inevitable. The moment came when he definitely made up his mind that he could not break away; that existence without her would be intolerable.

They were married quietly before the registrar, a strange wedding for the heir to the Southleigh earldom. No relatives of his were present, as he had forborne to give them any notice of his intention. She was unattended also. Even her cousin, Mr Dutton, did not put in an appearance. Knowing her future husband's dislike of the young man, she had not paid him the compliment of requesting his attendance.

The day before the marriage, she spoke to him in a tremulous voice and with tears in her eyes.

"Guy, darling, I have said very little about this before, but you must not think I am blind to the sacrifices you are making. From to-morrow I bid adieu to my past life, to all the few friends and acquaintances I have made; I know that you will be happier by my doing so. Henceforth I devote my whole life to you. Your people shall be my people, if they will forgive me and have me."

He clasped her to his breast with a lover's rapture. How sweet and womanly she looked as she uttered those words in her low, broken tones.

He understood what she meant. For his sake she was going to give up all that shady L'Estrange crew, to see as little of her objectionable cousin as possible. She explained, later on, that she could not ignore him altogether, as he had the management of her small affairs in his hands.

But all this could be conducted by correspondence.

Guy was delighted. He knew well enough that his own world would not accept his marriage kindly, that they would never take his wife to their offended bosom. But they would rub along somehow. There were plenty of men he could bring to their house, and perhaps a few decent women who were perfectly respectable, but not too strait-laced. And, anyway, the world was well lost for love like this.

It cannot be said that, on the social side, their existence was a very brilliant one. It did not matter so much to Guy, he had never been over-fond of society. He liked his men friends, and having been a bachelor so long, he was fond of club life. He got quite as much amus.e.m.e.nt and distraction as he wanted.

His wife had many lonely hours, but she was wise in this respect that she never sought to chain him to her side. Whenever he came home he found her there waiting for him, affectionate and welcoming. Perhaps, after her stormy and chequered past, what would have been dullness to others seemed to her the peace she had been longing for.

She got on very well with her husband's male friends, most of whom openly expressed amongst themselves their admiration for her. If she had been a woman of a flirtatious temperament she could have had a good time without overstepping the bounds of decorum. But she never exceeded the limits of strict friendship. She never indulged in an intimacy that could have the least element of danger in it. The general vote was, that she was very beautiful, very charming, in a quiet, elusive way, but naturally of a cold and unimpa.s.sionable nature. Only for her husband did her glance take on a warmer expression, her voice a tenderer tone.

The few women who came to the house found her unsatisfactory. The impression made upon them--and women are pretty shrewd when dissecting one of their own s.e.x--was that she was a person who lived too much within herself, had a rooted disinclination "to let herself go" in those little confidential chats which are indulged in when no men are present.

And for that studied reticence there must be some cogent reason. Above all, she never referred to her girlhood, never made any allusions to her family. The general impression was that Mrs Spencer had something to hide.