The Kingdom Round the Corner Part 20

Her voice was like a chime of contralto bells. It made him think of Bernhardt. It imparted to the commonplaces she uttered a quite disproportionate intensity of drama and tragic depth. The way in which she had said, "Oh, no," reverberated in his memory as though the sound still lingered on the air.

"I don't know at all," he commenced. Then he smiled at his confusion.

"You see I'm not used to answering doors, and Mrs. Lockwood's not quite herself. She was very tired just now. But if you'll give me your name, I'll----"

If he'd been left to himself, he might have succeeded in creating the impression that he was Maisie's physician. As it was, his conscience was spared the deception by the advent of the inevitable Porter. She sailed up behind him with an appearance so immaculate that it would have shed propriety on the most compromising circ.u.mstances. He instantly stood aside to make room for her. "Porter, here's a lady enquiring for----"

But the lady took matters into her own hands. "Mrs. Lockwood in, Porter?"

"Why, certainly, your Ladys.h.i.+p."

"Then why was I shut out? Who is this gentleman who----"

The rest was lost as their voices sank. The next words he caught were her Ladys.h.i.+p's, running up the scale of laughter. "Then I'm not _de trop_! That's a blessing!"

He fell back, trying to obliterate himself, as with every sign of deference Porter admitted her; but in crossing the hall, she had to pa.s.s him. Scarcely pausing, she swept him with a pair of stone-gray eyes, made mischievous for the moment with merriment. "You're no good as a butler," she whispered. "You carry discretion too far."

To his chagrin he recognized her--the one woman whom he would most have chosen to have met in an att.i.tude that was dignified. She entered the drawing-room and was lost to sight. But she had left the door ajar and he heard Maisie's delighted exclamation, "Why, Di, what brings you here so late? This is darling of you!" His position was elaborately false. It grew more false every minute he delayed. He foresaw himself apologizing and being explained. He had no appet.i.te for explanations. Since he had adventured into Mulberry Tree Court, he had twice been tempted to bolt for safety. Now that he was tempted for a third time, he acted blindly on the impulse. Having played the role of butler with too much discretion, he seized his hat and, without a thought of ceremony, adopted a butler's mode of escaping.

III

In the shrouded emptiness of the London night he felt himself free again. He came into possession of himself and found that he could think with his old definite clearness. In the last few hours events had rushed him off his feet; he had no sooner realized their significance than he had discovered himself in the throes of a new crisis. Now, for the moment, he stood aloof and could consider his actions in their true perspective.

As he turned out of Mulberry Tree Court, he had thought he had heard a voice calling after him. "Lord Taborley! Lord Taborley!" He had looked back across the imitation village-green, where the white posts showed dimly like smudges of chalk. The door of Maisie's house had been opened wide, making a lozenge of gold against the blackness. He had fancied that he had seen her standing there framed, leaning out, and then----Yes, surely he had heard the running of slippered feet along the pavement. He had not waited. He scarcely knew from what he was escaping--perhaps from his fate, from which there is ultimately no escape. He seized his respite, however, for the dread of recapture was strong upon him.

And now all hint of pursuit had died out. Tall houses stood muted against the sky; dim trees cast a leafy obscurity; stars glinted remotely like diamonds set in gun-metal. He found a healing chast.i.ty in his sudden aloneness; it roused in him an almost angry desire to recover his lost monasticism.

He was amused to discover himself speculating as to whether women were worth the trouble they occasioned. They coerced men with sentimental arguments to which there were no replies. They wore away men's fort.i.tude with the continual flowing of their tears. They molded men's strength into weakness with the magic caressing of their s.e.x. They promised and disappointed, flattered and allured, captured and despised. Their curiosity was insatiable to possess themselves of secrets, which were no longer valued the moment they were divulged. Their little teasing hands, so destructive and lovable, had commenced the debacle of every human greatness. Throughout the ages, their coaxing, pleading voices could be heard wheedling men's hearts to the same purpose. "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherein thou mightest be bound to afflict thee." The strength of men had eternally roused their resentment, whether they were the Delilahs of long ago or the Maisies of a modern generation. The goal of all their pa.s.sion, even when it was unselfish, was to bind.

He had nearly been bound, but he had escaped. At the thought that he had escaped, he felt a flood of exultant joy sweep through him. He smiled, believing he had discovered a humorous and more human motive for the exhausting piety of the anchorites. It wasn't their religious self-abnegation that had made them flee to scorched river-beds and desert hiding-places; it was their triumphant satisfaction at having tantalized and eluded feminine pursuit. They fled in order that they might possess, not deny themselves. As they became more emaciated and scarred and as their needs grew less, they listened. What they heard was ample compensation for all that they had foresworn at the hands of life.

Far blown from distant haunts of habitation came a sound which in their ears was sweetest music: day and night the painful dragging of chains and the groan of men toiling in servitude to women.

"The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!" When the last sleepy caress had been given, all men who lacked the caution of the anchorite, were sooner or later destined to hear that cry.

How much n.o.bler men had been in a womanless world! Some of them had had to become womanless before they could be n.o.ble. Pollock plunging to his death from the clouds, like an eagle struck by a thunderbolt! Lord Dawn with the smile of calm remembrance on his lips, purged of all his fruitless s.e.x-contentions, lying white and quiet beneath the crack and spatter of exploding sh.e.l.ls! Braithwaite, the ex-valet, who had proved himself an aristocrat in courage! And he himself, thinking only of duty, with every jealous ambition laid aside!

And now---- The mate of the eagle was a trifler with peac.o.c.ks and vultures. The man whose face had been molded by his last thought into an expression of serene faithfulness, was recalled only as one who had lived envenomed by disloyalty. Braithwaite, the aristocrat in courage, was now distinguished for his cowardice; he himself was at one and the same time Braithwaite's rival and grudging critic. _The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And he awoke out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself_----Asleep! He felt that he, too, had been asleep. All the men who had been giants in the past five years were either dead or sleeping. And this sudden transformation was the work of women, because men had come back to walk and rest with them in the soft, desired places. The little feminine hands had stripped them of their charity, had taken away their valor and had concealed liers-in-wait in the chamber of their affections.

So his thoughts ran on, amplifying, magnifying, exaggerating the theme of the debilitating effects of women. But from all his accusations he exempted Terry. She was the Joan of Arc of his imagination, who rode on unvanquished across life's battlefields, inspiring to heroism with her s.h.i.+ning purity. And he made one other exception--Lady Dawn. It was the Lady Dawn of the portrait he exempted, not the Lady Dawn who had mocked him in pa.s.sing with her steady stone-gray eyes. In a strange way he discriminated between the portrait and the living woman. The portrait was almost his friend; the living woman was a stranger. The woman in the portrait was after his own heart; she had never been known to cry.

"Do it harder; I can bear more than that." He thrilled to the pride of her defiance.

Then he pulled himself up with a start. Again he was thinking about her.

Yes, and though he might discriminate between the portrait and the living woman, it was the living woman's eyes that gleamed in the blackness of his mind. There was truth in what Maisie had said, that were he as much in love with Terry as he professed all other women, however beautiful, except the one woman, should be hanks of hair and bags of bones. He consoled himself by arguing that that was precisely what he had been trying to prove them by his sweeping applications of the conduct of Delilah.

Whichever way he viewed his situation, things were in a pretty fair muddle--a muddle which annoyed him because it was so unmerited. He was pledged to Terry, while she held herself unpledged. He was committed to help Maisie--a distinctly unwise little lady for any bachelor to help.

As a third party to his problem, Lady Dawn intruded herself--though why she should, he wasn't certain. He would have to see her, however much Maisie dissuaded; it was right that she should know about her husband.

Yet was that the entire reason why he was so keen to see her? He a.s.sured himself very earnestly that it was, and dismissed her from his mind.

For the rest of the journey home he conscientiously narrowed his imaginings to thoughts of Terry.

IV

It was with thoughts of her that he fitted his key in the latch. The Square was full of newly married couples, some of them little more than boys and girls--youngsters who had waited impatiently and had run together the moment war was ended. Others had been married just long enough to be proudly parading their first baby. Every morning white prams were wheeled out into the garden, there to be watched over by softly spoken nurses. Every night, as dusk came down, expectant mothers paced gently through the shadows, leaning on the arms of ex-officer husbands. It wasn't only in the trees that nests were being built. The Square's name might well have been changed to Honeymoon Square.

And now, as Tabs pushed the door open, preparing to enter, he knew that all up and down the Square, behind the pall of darkness, other doors were being pushed back. Young couples were coming home from dinners and theaters. He could hear the murmur of their laughter, subdued and secret, hinting at intimacies of affection. The men had misplaced their latch-key perhaps; the girls were advising that they search another pocket. Or the lock refused to turn and the girls were whispering how it could be persuaded. Some of them were arriving in taxis; others, less lucky or more economic, were tripping by on foot along the pavement. He noticed how closely they clung together and he thought of Terry. It would be jolly to be young, to build a nest and, by and by, to see your own white pram wheeled out to take its place in the blowy greenness of the garden. He withdrew his key and entered, closing the door behind him.

The house was very still. It was nearly midnight. The maids had gone to bed, leaving lights in the hall and on the landings. As he hung up his hat, the stillness was broken by the sudden ringing of the telephone. It rang in a peevish, scolding manner, as though this were not the first time and it had lost its temper with waiting. He climbed the flight of stairs to his library and, without waiting to switch on the lights, sat down at his table, taking up the receiver.

"Yes."

"Is this Lord Taborley?" a voice inquired.

"Lord Taborley speaking."

"This is Sir Tobias Beddow." There was a pause, followed by a little asthmatic cough. Then, "How are you, my dear fellow? I've been trying to reach you all evening. I was expecting to see you round here this morning at eleven.--No, I don't mean perhaps what you infer. Besides, it wouldn't have been any good if you had called; Terry wandered out, without leaving word where she was going. She didn't get back till nearly lunch-time. Most unaccountable conduct under the circ.u.mstances; but since your conduct was equally unaccountable, perhaps it was just as well. But that wasn't what I called you up about."

Tabs smiled in the darkness. Sir Tobias was as simple and crafty as a child; he couldn't keep anything back. Then his mind jumped to the obvious conclusion. Terry hadn't told her parents about her morning interview; her parents naturally supposed that it was his fault that he was not engaged to her as yet. Making an effort to be diplomatic, he said, "Perhaps I can explain my apparent negligence to you later. It must seem unpardonable. I've been busy every minute over things that absolutely couldn't be avoided."

"Of course. Of course." The words were spoken soothingly, but without conviction. "We men understand. It's Lady Beddow who---- Such events are women's great occasions. She's a stickler for form. As you say, you can explain later---- But that wasn't what I called you up about."

Tabs stifled a yawn. He had suddenly discovered he was sleepy.

"What was that you said?" Sir Tobias enquired suspiciously.

"I didn't say anything," Tabs replied politely. "But I think I know what you called me up about. It was about Maisie--I mean Mrs. Lockwood."

"What about her?" The question was asked carelessly; he knew at once that he had missed his guess. It was strange, even though he had guessed wrongly, that Sir Tobias should not display more interest.

"What about her? Only that I've spent the last six hours with her. You asked me to see her as soon as possible, you remember. I had only just got home from being with her, when the telephone rang. She's not the woman we thought her."

"Eh? What's that?"

He repeated what he had said. He was perfectly certain that Sir Tobias had heard the first time. "She's not the woman we thought her." And he added, "There's been some mistake. She hasn't and never did have any designs on Adair. After we'd talked things over, she agreed of her own accord never to see him again."

"She did!" There was a long pause, expressive of skepticism, dissatisfaction, or anything that he cared to conjecture. Then, "When we meet, you can tell me. But that wasn't what I called you up about."

Tabs waited for him to tell him why he had called him up. He waited so long that it seemed to be a compet.i.tion to see who would compel the other to break the silence first. At last he gave in. "If that wasn't why, why did you?"

He almost heard Sir Tobias blink his eyes--those faded eyes that looked so blind and saw so much. "I called you up about this General Braithwaite. He's been here to see me on the biggest fool's errand, with the most unusual story which, if it's true, partly concerns yourself.

It's too late to enter into details this evening. But I thought I'd let you know---- Good night."

"One minute, Sir Tobias----"

Before he could get any further Sir Tobias had hung up. For a few seconds he sat there in the darkness listening; then he hung up also and took himself off to bed.

What object had Braithwaite had in going to see Sir Tobias? Was it his first step in trying to play fair? Was his "fool's errand" a formal request for Terry's hand in marriage and his "unusual story" a manly recital of the facts? And had this great advance in frankness included the telling of Ann? As he tossed sleeplessly from side to side, other problems leapt up to confront him. Had he done wisely in promising Maisie that, in a measure, he would compensate her for the loss of Adair? What would Sir Tobias think of such an intimacy when he got to hear of it? What would even Adair think of it? There was only one person who would not doubt his integrity; that was Terry. And then Lady Dawn--had he actually any moral right to interfere in her affairs? "Do it harder; I can bear more than that." He could hear her saying it in that deep, emotional voice of hers. He could feel her honest stone-gray eyes, probing his soul for motives in the darkness.