The Man with the Double Heart Part 63

"A jolly good lesson," he said slowly, "it taught me to be ... less of a fool. So don't let that worry you, but help me now--with this d.a.m.ned villa!"

The very depth of his pity for her made him brusque and he ran on jerkily.

"So that's settled. I want your answer. D'you think you could stand it? It's jolly dull--but with no pet dogs or flannel petticoats!

Could a 'real lady' become a caretaker?"

She nodded her head, unable to speak, shaken by a fit of coughing. A chilliness was in the air. McTaggart rose to his feet.

"Come along--it's getting damp. We'll go back to my rooms--I'd like to fix this up to-night as I'm off to Scotland early to-morrow."

He held out his hand with a boyish laugh. "Like old times, eh, Fantine?" and helped her up on to her feet, his own eyes suspiciously bright.

With trembling fingers she lowered her veil and shook out the folds of her shabby dress as McTaggart still rattled on, giving her time to recover.

"I want you to travel to Viareggio as soon as you can. It's a long journey--d'you mind that?"

"No"--she laughed shakily--"one goes through France?" Her voice was wistful.

"Yes--I'll write to-night to Cook's--get you a berth. Would you like to stay for a night in Paris on your way? that would be wiser----" he guessed her thought.

"I'm awfully glad you like the idea--it's really luck my meeting you.

I've got a place in Siena, you know, and a flat in Rome, so I daresay I shall look in sometimes--break my journey to see that you're behaving yourself."

They walked along the narrow strip of gra.s.s that fringed the row of chairs. But when they came out on to the path Fantine glanced to the right and paused, looking up at the huge statue, its s.h.i.+eld aloft against the sky.

"Well--are you making a fresh conquest?"

"Yes--and no!" she laughed softly. "I say good-bye to my friend, Achille--it's just a politeness of mine, Pierrot."

For a moment she stood there, eyes raised.

McTaggart, pitiful, guessed her thought. He saw that the post, invented for her, was not for long as he watched her face.

And something of the old glamour, the memory of the days that were, brought a sharp pain to his heart. He tried in vain to conceal his fear.

But Fantine knew. She nodded her head.

"In case," she murmured, "I don't return."

Then, gaily, to the statue.

"Au revoir, cher Monsieur!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

A month had flown by on the swift wings of Summer. Already a crispness in the air heralded in Dame Autumn; with her rainbow-hued cloak trailing golds and reds, glittering with the diamonds strewn by the first h.o.a.r frost, as she pa.s.sed.

At Worthing the beach marked the change of seasons. The bathing tents were folded up, the deck chairs had departed. Loving couples no longer lay stretched out on the warm pebbles, their faces hidden by handkerchiefs or the folds of a comic paper, in the fond belief--like the proverbial ostrich--that the rest of them (hands locked together or arms clinging around waists) was invisible to the critical public. The motor char-a-bancs ceased running, all save one that still plied on that straight white road that leads to Brighton, over the long bridge guarded by lions and past the little settlements of cl.u.s.tering bungalows.

In the back of that conveyance, on this particular sunny day, a single occupant was exposed to the keen breeze, protected by a motor veil of dark blue chiffon that obscured the outline of her face. The wide inviting stretch of sea with its curling waves, ivory tipped, was lost to her, and the silvery gleam of gulls dipping to the water. In the blue arch of the sky above, clouds of dazzling white were driven by the east wind, ma.s.sed together to salute the great golden sun.

It was not only the heavy veil that shut the vision from her sight.

For Mrs. Uniacke was not, in any sense, an observant woman. Beauty as beauty left her untouched or filled her with a faint distress. There was so much "to be done in life"--this was her strenuous daily creed--that to pause by the way and enjoy G.o.d's gifts became a sinful waste of the fleeting moments, destined to work.

Her restlessness of body and mind forbade that pleasant state in which the spirit frees itself from more material cares to absorb Nature's picture, utterly soothed by a sense of colour or light or of exquisite proportion.

Yet, for all her unconsciousness of the birth of a new season on Earth, a similar awakening stirred in the depths of her woman's heart. For the object of her journey was a meeting with Stephen Somerfield; her thoughts were full of that young man to the exclusion of all else.

The delicate flush on her bird-like face and the soft excitement in her eyes betrayed the emotions that warred within, self-accusing, yet triumphant. At the end of a long spell of silence Stephen had written a clever letter explaining away his neglect of Jill and throwing himself on the mother's mercy.

He had placed the blame on the girl's shoulders with a brief account of her att.i.tude vis-a-vis to himself, her rebellious disregard of his wishes, her flat refusal to take his advice.

"I can quite understand how you feel"--he wrote with apparent candour--"I can find no excuse for my conduct. But you must see how difficult it was for me to force myself on such a plainly unwilling companion--one, moreover, who had not scrupled to openly show her dislike to me.

"I was there in a semi-official position. I had my own work to do--not militant, it is true, but important in its lesser way. On my arrival the night before I found a ma.s.s of correspondence--the trouble incident to the fire, police reports, etc., etc.--and had I not known your keen desire that Jill should be left in my charge, I should not have gone to the meeting at all, but acted as I eventually did.

"I see now that I was wrong to stay away, but--to speak plainly--Jill had been _so_ rude to me that my pride at last rose in arms.

"I knew she was with some excellent women, two of whom were your personal friends, and, of course, I hadn't the faintest idea there was likely to be serious trouble.

"Believe me, dear Mrs. Uniacke, I am more grieved than I can express..." the letter became personal, dealing with the break in their friends.h.i.+p, begged humbly for forgiveness and craved a "final interview" at Brighton, where he awaited her answer.

Luckily for the young man's object, his apology had been well timed, arriving at Worthing late one evening at the close of a stormy family scene.

Mrs. Uniacke's displeasure had fallen heavily on Jill. For Roddy, at last, had summoned courage to approach his mother on the subject of the profession to which he aspired; to be met with immediate opposition, rendered more galling by contempt. "Become an Artist!" The soldier's widow stared at the boy's excited face. "Whoever heard of such nonsense? You'll go to Sandhurst if I can afford it--that was what your father planned."

Jill had plunged into the fray, backing up the youthful rebel, had lost her temper and spoken strongly, stirred by her own College traditions, on the liberty due to the new generation.

Mrs. Uniacke, whose strength did not lie in argument, claimed that until he came of age Roddy owed her unswerving obedience.

Jill had actually laughed at this.

"You can't expect it--not on a subject as serious as his whole future.

He's a human being--just like you!--Why can't he have a voice in the matter? He's not fitted for a soldier--he's an artist to his finger tips. Well!--you can try and send him to Sandhurst but you can't _make_ him pa.s.s his Exams!"

Roddy, white lipped and deeply hurt, had caught his sister's eye and chuckled.

"That's a sound idea," he said. "Thank you, Jill--I won't forget."

At this point Mrs. Uniacke had fallen back on her last resource--tears; and, her handkerchief to her eyes, had ordered her children up to bed.

"Just as if we still wore socks!" Jill, rebellious, had whispered as they climbed up the dingy stairs of the tiny furnished house by the sea. "Never mind, old boy--you _shan't_ be a soldier. I'll see to that. In a few years' time I'll have my money that Father left me.

She can't touch that! I believe Aunt Elizabeth would help if it came to a pinch..." she broke off as "Rat-tat"--down below came the postman's knock.

She leaned over the banisters and called to the servant in the hall.