To Love Part 28

Daddy Brown came round in the course of the morning to talk over his new idea for Joan's future. It appeared that if she was willing to think it over, he would pay for her to have singing and dancing lessons during the winter. That was, of course, provided the War did not come off. If it did, as he had said once before to f.a.n.n.y, there would not be any Spring tours for the Brown Company.

"But war isn't likely," he spoke heavily. "England has too much to lose to go running into it if she can steer clear, and there's my offer, my girl. I think, from what I saw last night, that if you like to put your heart into it you ought to make something of an actress. You have distinct ability, and you have charm, which is on the good side too."

Joan was hardly in the mood to pay much attention to her future prospects; the present loomed too forbiddingly ahead of her. She would let him know, she told him finally; she was most awfully grateful to him for his suggestion, but she must have at least a fortnight to think things out and decide what she was going to do.

"Very well," Brown agreed, he rose to take his leave; "but mind you, it is worth considering, young lady; you don't get such an offer every day."

f.a.n.n.y was staying behind for another day; she had some amus.e.m.e.nt in store with Swetenham which she did not want to miss, but the rest of the company, Joan included, caught the three o'clock train back to town.

Joan could not refuse to go with them, but the journey was one long torture to her; she wanted to get right away by herself; there was only one day left in which to plan and make ready for d.i.c.k's visit. Some of Brown's ponderous remarks as to the probable effect of a war on the theatrical profession had filtered down to the junior members of the company. They talked together rather mournfully as to what the winter might be going to mean for them. "If it knocks pantomimes, we are done,"

Grace Binning summed up the situation. But Grace Binning was inclined to be mournful; as Mrs. O'Malley said, her sprained ankle would keep her out of work in any case for six weeks.

At Victoria Station Strachan ferreted out Joan's luggage and hailed a taxi for her.

"Good-bye," he said to her at the last--they had always been very good friends, with a little encouragement he might have considered himself in love with her--"and good luck. Also, if you will excuse me saying so, Miss Rutherford, I should marry that faithful young man. You are not a bit suited or happy in our life."

Then he drew back his head quickly and smiled at her as the taxi started off.

Joan had written to Mrs. Carew, asking her to see about a room, and found to her relief that her old attic was still at her disposal.

"Thought you would find it homelike," Mrs. Carew panted up the stairs in front of her, "and for that matter it has been shut up since you left.

Bad year for letting this has been."

Obviously the room had been shut up since she left. Joan struggled with the fast-closed window and threw it open, but even so the place retained an atmosphere of overpowering stuffiness, and presently, not staying to unpack or open the letter which had been waiting for her on the hall table, she sallied out again in search of fresh air.

She would walk to Knightsbridge, she decided, and so on through the Park. If she tired herself out perhaps she would be able to sleep when she went to bed, and sleep was what she needed almost more than anything else.

The Park was deserted and sun-swept; it had been an exceptionally hot summer, the trees and bushes seemed smothered under a weight of dust.

Joan found a seat in sight of one of the stretches of water and opened her letter. It was from Miss Abercrombie, that she had known from the envelope, and written from the Rutherford home at Wrotham.

"DEAR JOAN," the letter ran:

"Your people are home, they have just come back from abroad and had a very tiresome journey over because of the mobilization on the Continent. Janet wrote, or rather your uncle wrote for her, asking me to be here to meet them. Janet is very ill, she will never be able to walk or stand up again in her life. They have tried all sorts of things for her abroad, now it has come to the last. All day, and most of the night, for she sleeps very badly, she lies flat on her back, and all the time her eyes seem to be watching for something.

She speaks very little, everything seems to be shut away in her heart, but yesterday--after having first talked the matter over with your uncle--I went up to her room and asked her point blank: 'Janet, aren't you eating out your heart for Joan?' and she nodded stiffly, the tears in her eyes. So I sat right down and told her all about you: about your accident, about the hard (child, I know it has been hard) fight you have had, and at the end I said: 'Shall I send for her, Janet?'

This time when she nodded the tears were streaming down her face. So I am sending for you. Don't let pride or anger stand between you, enough anguish has been caused already on both sides, and she is practically dying. Come, child, show a charity which your struggle will have taught you, and help to make her going a little easier, for she has always loved you, and her heart breaks for the need of you."

It was a very sentimental letter for Miss Abercrombie to have written.

And Aunt Janet was dying; quite long ago Joan had forgiven the hardness from her, there was no bitterness in her heart now, only a great sense of pity. She would go, of course she would go. Like a flash it came to her that she might just slip away and leave no address, no message to d.i.c.k. But even with the thought came the knowledge that she would only be shelving the difficulty for a little; he would wait, he would search till he found her. She did not think he would be very easy to put off.

With Miss Abercrombie's letter open on her lap, she sat and watched the people pa.s.sing by her. She was thinking of all her life since she had first come to London; Gilbert, their time together--strange how that memory had no more power to hurt--the black days that had followed, Rose and f.a.n.n.y. Of them all perhaps she had loved f.a.n.n.y the best; f.a.n.n.y's philosophy of life was so delightfully simple, she was like some little animal that followed every fresh impulse. And she never seemed to regret or pay for her misdeeds. Apparently when you sinned calmly in the full knowledge that it was sin, you paid no penalty; it was only when you sinned attempting to make new laws for yourself and calling it no sin that the burden of retribution was so heavy to bear.

A man was coming down the path towards her; she did not notice him, although he was staring at her rather intently. Opposite to her he came to a pause and took off his hat.

"Hallo," he said, "I am not mistaken, am I, it is Pierrette."

She lifted startled eyes to his and Landon laughed at her. He had forgotten all about her till this moment, but just for the time being he was at a loose end in London when all his friends were out of town, and with no new pa.s.sion on to entertain him. Pierrette, were she willing, would fill in the gap pleasantly; they had not parted the best of friends, but he had forgotten just enough for that memory not to rankle.

He sat down on the chair beside her and took one of her hands in his.

"Where have you been, Pierrette? And what have you been doing? Also, are you not glad to see me, and whose love letter were you reading?"

"It is not a love letter." Joan took her hand away and folding up Miss Abercrombie's letter, slipped it into her purse. "It is from my people, asking me to come home, and I am going."

"Going, when I have only just found you again!"

His tone, his whole manner was unbearably familiar. Joan turned with quick words of resentment on her lips, but they were never said. A sudden thought came across her brain. Here was something with which she could fight down and kill d.i.c.k's purpose. Better, far better than any confession of hers, better than any stating of the truth, however bluntly put, would be this man's easy familiarity, his almost air of ownership. She found herself staring at Landon. What had she ever seen in him that was either pleasant or attractive? She hated his eyes, and the way they looked at her, the too evident care which had been expended on his appearance, his long, shapely hands.

"Well, Pierrette, when you have finished studying my personal appearance," Landon broke in, "perhaps you will explain yourself more explicitly. Why are you flying from me just when I have found you? And, Pierrette, what about supper to-night at Les Gobelins?"

"I can't do that," Joan spoke quickly. She had clenched her hands in her lap; he did not notice that, but he could see that the colour had fled from her face. "And I have got to go away the day after to-morrow. But couldn't you come and have tea with me to-morrow at 6, Montague Square?

Do, please do."

What was she driving at? Landon caught his breath on a laugh. Was it the last final flutter before she had to go back to home life and having her wings cut? Or was she throwing herself into his arms after having fought so furiously--he remembered that she had fought the last time, perhaps she had learned her lesson; perhaps the poor little devil had really fallen in love with him, and had been eating her heart out all this time. That was almost amusing. She had never, even in their days of greatest friendship, asked him into her room before, though he had often suggested coming.

"Why, Pierrette, of course," he said. Then he laughed out loud. "And I'll bring some red roses, afterwards we will go out to supper, and it shall be like old times."

"Afterwards," Joan repeated. The excitement had left her, she sounded on the instant very tired, "I don't know about afterwards, but bring the red roses and come at half-past four, will you?" She stood up, "I must go home," she said, "I have got to pack and get everything ready before to-morrow."

He could not understand her mood in the least, but he could draw his own conclusions from her invitation. It set him whistling softly on his way home. The tune he selected was one that was being played everywhere in London at the time. It fitted into his thoughts excellently:

"Just a little love, a little kiss, I will give my life for this."

Poor, silly little Pierrette! Why had she fought with him before and wasted so much precious time? As a matter of fact, he broke off his whistle as the startling truth flashed on him, he might quite easily have forgotten all about her in the interval, and then where would she have been?

CHAPTER XXV

"I have left you behind In the path of the past; With the white breath of flowers, With the best of G.o.d's hours, I have left you at last."

DORA SIGERSON.

Mrs. Carew was in a state of discontent which amounted almost to anger.

"I knew such kind of things were bound to happen," she grumbled fiercely, "if she joined in with a girl like that Miss Bellairs. I have never held and I never will hold with young ladies having men to tea in their bedrooms."

"Why don't you just tell her so?" suggested her helpmate from his customary entrenched position in an armchair behind the newspaper. "It would be a good deal cheaper than breaking the kitchen china, Maria."

"Tell her!" snorted Mrs. Carew. "She don't give me a chance. Cool as a cuc.u.mber she turns to me this morning, she says: 'Oh, I've two gentlemen to tea this afternoon, Mrs. Carew, just show them up when they come.'

Then she 'ops it out of the front door like a rabbit. 'Gentlemen,'

indeed, and she with not so much as a screen round her bed."

"Perhaps they are her brothers," ventured Mr. Carew.

Mrs. Carew came to a pause beside him and swept aside his paper.

"Brothers!" she repeated, "now, Arthur, you know better than to say that. What I say and what I always shall say is: Let 'em do what they like outside, poor motherless girls that they are, but in my house things have got to be run straight. I won't have them bringing men in here."