The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories Part 4

"I haven't had a chance; there hasn't been time."

Even to herself the words sounded halting and unconvincing.

"It's not that. There's something else. I suspected it yesterday. I'm sure of it today. Deirdre, what is it?"

She shook her head dumbly.

"There's some reason why you don't want to leave George Crozier, why you don't want to come back to me. What is it?"

It was true. As he said it she knew it, knew it with sudden scorching shame, but knew it beyond any possibility of doubt. And still his eyes searched her.

"It isn't that you love him! You don't. But there's something."

She thought: "In another moment he'll see! Oh, G.o.d, don't let him!"

Suddenly his face whitened.

"Deirdre - is it - is it that there's going to be a - child?"

In a flash she saw the chance he offered her. A wonderful way! Slowly, almost without her own volition, she bowed her head.

She heard his quick breathing, then his voice, rather high and hard.

"That - alters things. I didn't know. We've got to find a different way out." He leaned across the table and caught both her hands in his. "Deirdre, my darling, never think - never dream that you were in any way to blame. Whatever happens, remember that. I should have claimed you when I came back to England. I funked it, so it's up to me to do what I can to put things straight now. You see? Whatever happens, don't fret, darling. Nothing has been your fault."

He lifted first one hand, then the other to his lips. Then she was alone, staring at the untasted tea. And, strangely enough, it was only one thing that she saw - a gaudily illuminated text hanging on a whitewashed wall. The words seemed to spring out from it and hurl themselves at her. "What shall it profit a man -" She got up, paid for her tea, and went out.

On his return George Crozier was met by a request that his wife might not be disturbed. Her headache, the maid said, was very bad.

It was nine o'clock the next morning when he entered her bedroom, his face rather grave. Deirdre was sitting up in bed. She looked white and haggard, but her eyes shone.

"George, I've got something to tell you, something rather terrible -"

He interrupted her brusquely.

"So you've heard. I was afraid it might upset you."

"Upset me?"

"Yes. You talked to the poor young fellow that day."

He saw her hand steal to her heart, her eyelids flicker, then she said in a low, quick voice that somehow frightened him: "I've heard nothing. Tell me quickly."

"I thought -"

"Tell me!"

"Out at that tobacco estate. Chap shot himself. Badly broken up in the war, nerves all to pieces, I suppose. There's no other reason to account for it."

"He shot himself in that dark shed where the tobacco was hanging." She spoke with certainty, her eyes like a sleepwalker's as she saw before her in the odorous darkness a figure lying there, revolver in hand.

"Why, to be sure; that's where you were taken queer yesterday. Odd thing, that!"

Deirdre did not answer. She saw another picture - a table with tea things on it, and a woman bowing her head in acceptance of a lie.

"Well, well, the war has a lot to answer for," said Crozier, and stretched out his hand for a match, lighting his pipe with careful puffs.

His wife's cry startled him.

"Ah! don't, don't! I can't bear the smell!"

He stared at her in kindly astonishment.

"My dear girl, you mustn't be nervy. After all, you can't escape from the smell of tobacco. You'll meet it everywhere."

"Yes, everywhere!" She smiled a slow, twisted smile, and murmured some words that he did not catch, words that she had chosen for the original obituary notice of Tim Nugent's death. "While the light lasts I shall remember, and in the darkness I shall not forget."

Her eyes widened as they followed the ascending spiral of smoke, and she repeated in a low, monotonous voice: "Everywhere, everywhere."

THE HOUSE OF DREAMS.

This is the story of John Segrave - of his life, which was unsatisfactory; of his love, which was unsatisfied; of his dreams, and of his death; and if in the two latter he found what was denied in the two former, then his life may, after all, be taken as a success. Who knows?

John Segrave came of a family which had been slowly going down the hill for the last century. They had been landowners since the days of Elizabeth, but their last piece of property was sold. It was thought well that one of the sons at least should acquire the useful art of money-making. It was an unconscious irony of Fate that John should be the one chosen.

With his strangely sensitive mouth, and the long dark blue slits of eyes that suggested an elf or a faun, something wild and of the woods, it was incongruous that he should be offered up, a sacrifice on the altar of Finance. The smell of the earth, the taste of the sea salt on one's lips, and the free sky above one's head - these were the things beloved by John Segrave, to which he was to bid farewell.

At the age of eighteen be became a junior clerk in a big business house. Seven years later he was still a clerk, not quite so junior, but with status otherwise unchanged. The faculty for "getting on in the world" had been omitted from his makeup. He was punctual, industrious, plodding - a clerk and nothing but a clerk. And yet he might have been - what? He could hardly answer that question himself, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that somewhere there was a life in which he could have - counted. There was power in him, swiftness of vision, a something of which his fellow toilers had never had a glimpse. They liked him. He was popular because of his air of careless friends.h.i.+p, and they never appreciated the fact that he barred them out by that same manner from any real intimacy.

The dream came to him suddenly. It was no childish fantasy growing and developing through the years. It came on a midsummer night, or rather early morning, and he woke from it tingling all over, striving to hold it to him as it fled, slipping from his clutch in the elusive way dreams have.

Desperately he clung to it. It must not go - it must not - He must remember the house. It was the House, of course! The House he knew so well. Was it a real house, or did he merely know it in dreams? He didn't remember - but he certainly knew it - knew it very well.

The faint grey light of the early morning was stealing into the room. The stillness was extraordinary. At 4:50 a.m. London, weary London, found her brief instant of peace.

John Segrave lay quiet, wrapped in the joy, the exquisite wonder and beauty of his dream. How clever it had been of him to remember it! A dream flitted so quickly as a rule, ran past you just as with waking consciousness your clumsy fingers sought to stop and hold it. But he had been too quick for this dream! He had seized it as it was slipping swiftly by him.

It was really a most remarkable dream! There was the house and - His thoughts were brought up with a jerk, for when he came to think of it, he couldn't remember anything but the house. And suddenly, with a tinge of disappointment, he recognized that, after all, the house was quite strange to him. He hadn't even dreamed of it before.

It was a white house, standing on high ground. There were trees near it, blue hills in the distance, but its peculiar charm was independent of surroundings for (and this was the point, the climax of the dream) it was a beautiful, a strangely beautiful house. His pulses quickened as he remembered anew the strange beauty of the house.

The outside of it, of course, for he hadn't been inside. There had been no question of that - no question of it whatsoever.

Then, as the dingy outlines of his bed-sitting room began to take shape in the growing light, he experienced the disillusion of the dreamer. Perhaps, after all, his dream hadn't been so very wonderful - or had the wonderful, the explanatory part, slipped past him, and laughed at his ineffectual clutching hands? A white house, standing on high ground - there wasn't much there to get excited about, surely. It was rather a big house, he remembered, with a lot of windows in it, and the blinds were all down, not because the people were away (he was sure of that), but because it was so early that no one was up yet.

Then he laughed at the absurdity of his imaginings, and remembered that he was to dine with Mr. Wetterman that night.

Maisie Wetterman was Rudolf Wetterman's only daughter, and she had been accustomed all her life to having exactly what she wanted. Paying a visit to her father's office one day, she had noticed John Segrave. He had brought in some letters that her father had asked for. When he had departed again, she asked her father about him. Wetterman was communicative.

"One of Sir Edward Segrave's sons. Fine old family, but on its last legs. This boy will never set the Thames on fire. I like him all right, but there's nothing to him. No punch of any kind."

Maisie was, perhaps, indifferent to punch. It was a quality valued more by her parent than herself. Anyway, a fortnight later she persuaded her father to ask John Segrave to dinner. It was an intimate diner, herself and her father, John Segrave, and a girlfriend who was staying with her.

The girlfriend was moved to make a few remarks.

"On approval, I suppose, Maisie? Later, father will do it up in a nice little parcel and bring it home from the city as a present to his dear little daughter, duly bought and paid for."

"Allegra! You are the limit."

Allegra Kerr laughed.

"You do take fancies, you know, Maisie. I like that hat - I must have it! If hats, why not husbands?"

"Don't be absurd. I've hardly spoken to him yet."

"No. But you've made up your mind," said the other girl. "What's the attraction, Maisie?"

"I don't know," said Maisie Wetterman slowly. "He's - different."

"Different?"

"Yes. I can't explain. He's good-looking, you know, in a queer sort of way, but it's not that. He's a way of not seeing you're there. Really, I don't believe he as much as glanced at me that day in father's office."

Allegra laughed.

"That's an old trick. Rather an astute young man, I should say."

"Allegra, you're hateful!"

"Cheer up, darling. Father will buy a wooly lamb for his little Maisiekins."

"I don't want it to be like that."

"Love with a capital L. Is that it?"

"Why shouldn't he fall in love with me?"

"No reason at all. I expect he will."

Allegra smiled as she spoke, and let her glance sweep over the other. Maisie Wetterman was short - inclined to be plump - she had dark hair, well s.h.i.+ngled and artistically waved. Her naturally good complexion was enhanced by the latest colors in powder and lipstick. She had a good mouth and teeth, dark eyes, rather small and twinkly, and a jaw and chin slightly on the heavy side. She was beautifully dressed.

"Yes," said Allegra, finis.h.i.+ng her scrutiny. "I've no doubt he will. The whole effect is really very good, Maisie."

Her friend looked at her doubtfully.

"I mean it," said Allegra. "I mean it - honor bright. But just supposing, for the sake of argument, that he shouldn't. Fall in love, I mean. Suppose his affection to become sincere, but platonic. What then?"

"I may not like him at all when I know him better."

"Quite so. On the other hand you may like him very much indeed. And in that latter case -"

Maisie shrugged her shoulders.

"I should hope I've too much pride -"

Allegra interrupted.

"Pride comes in handy for masking one's feelings - it doesn't stop you from feeling them."

"Well," said Maisie, flushed. "I don't see why I shouldn't say it. I am a very good match. I mean from his point of view, father's daughter and everything."

"Partners.h.i.+p in the offing, et cetera," said Allegra. "Yes, Maisie. You're father's daughter, all right. I'm awfully pleased. I do like my friends to run true to type."

The faint mockery of her tone made the other uneasy.

"You are hateful, Allegra."

"But stimulating, darling. That's why you have me here. I'm a student of history, you know, and it always intrigued me why the court jester was permitted and encouraged. Now that I'm one myself, I see the point. It's rather a good role, you see, I had to do something. There was I, proud and penniless like the heroine of a novelette, well born and badly educated. 'What to do, girl? G.o.d wot,' saith she. The poor relation type of girl, all willingness to do without a fire in her room and content to do odd jobs and 'help dear Cousin So and So,' I observed to be at a premium. n.o.body really wants her - except those people who can't keep their servants, and they treat her like a galley slave.

"So I became the court fool. Insolence, plain speaking, a dash of wit now and again (not too much lest I should have to live up to it), and behind it all, a very shrewd observation of human nature. People rather like being told how horrible they really are. That's why they flock to popular preachers. It's been a great success. I'm always overwhelmed with invitations. I can live on my friends with the greatest ease, and I'm careful to make no pretence of grat.i.tude."

"There's no one quite like you, Allegra. You don't mind in the least what you say."

"That's where you're wrong. I mind very much - I take care and thought about the matter. My seeming outspokenness is always calculated. I've got to be careful. This job has got to carry me on to old age."

"Why not marry? I know heaps of people have asked you."

Allegra's face grew suddenly hard.

"I can never marry."

"Because -" Maisie left the sentence unfinished, looking at her friend. The latter gave a short nod of a.s.sent.

Footsteps were heard on the stairs. The butler threw open the door and announced: "Mr. Segrave."

John came in without any particular enthusiasm. He couldn't imagine why the old boy had asked him. If he could have got out of it he would have done so. The house depressed him, with its solid magnificence and the soft pile of its carpet.

A girl came forward and shook hands with him. He remembered vaguely having seen her one day in her father's office.

"How do you do, Mr. Segrave? Mr. Segrave - Miss Kerr."