Blue Aloes Part 29

They began to realize dimly then, as they realized fully later on, that, by a merciful gift of Providence her mind was a blank concerning all the dark things of the past.

Memory of them had died with the dying of the Malay woman at eight o'clock on a summer evening, and no shadow of them ever came back to dim the harmony of her life with Denis Harlenden.

She is one of the happiest as well as one of the loveliest women in London today. Wrapped up in her home life and children, she still finds time to be seen about everywhere with her husband, and they are looked upon as one of the few ideally happy couples in society.

It has often been remarked, as a curious fact, that she never wears jewels of any kind, save an emerald ring and some exquisite pearls.

April Folly

PART I

Waterloo Station, greasy underfoot and full of the murky, greenish gloom of a November day, was the scene of a jostling crowd. The mail-boat train for South Africa stretched far down the long platform, every carriage door blocked by people bidding farewell, handing in bouquets of flowers, parcels of books, boxes of chocolates; bartering jests and scattering laughter; sending their love to the veld, to Table Mountain, to Rhodesia, to the Victoria Falls.

Only one first-cla.s.s reserved compartment had no crowd before it, nor any further audience than a middle-aged woman, with a wistful Irish face and the neat and careful appearance peculiar to superior servants of the old-fas.h.i.+oned type. With her hands full of newly-purchased bookstand magazines and her eyes full of trouble, she stood gazing at the sole occupant of the carriage.

"Oh, Miss Diana your Ladys.h.i.+p . . ." he began once more.

"Shut it, Marney," said Miss Diana her Ladys.h.i.+p, elegantly. "I've had enough. You're not coming with me, and that's that. I'm not a child any longer never to stir about the world alone."

"Shure, and your aunt, Lady Grizel, will turn in her grave at it," keened poor Marney. An expression of scampish glee crossed the girl's face.

"Yes, old Grizzly will do some turning," she murmured. "Thank goodness that's all she can do now."

The maid crossed herself with a shocked air, though it was far from being the first time she had heard those profanities of the dead upon her mistress's lips. The latter gave her no time for further argument.

"What's the use of standing there stuffing up my view?" she demanded crossly. "If you want something to do, go and get me some flowers.

Everyone has flowers but me. It's outrageous. Get heaps."

Marney flurried down the platform, bent on her errand, and Diana Vernilands immediately issued from the doorstep of the carriage and gazed eagerly and invitingly at the crowd.

Ordinarily the beauty alone of the sables which m.u.f.fled her ears and fell to her heels would have focused attention, not to mention the eager liveliness of her face. But on this occasion no one returned her vivid glances. Everyone was busy with their own affairs and friends. The only person seeming as isolated and lonely as herself was another girl, who, having made a tour from one end of the train to the other in vain quest of a seat, was now wearily and furiously doing the return trip. No porter followed her; she carried her own dressing-case and rugs, and she, too, was without flowers. This last fact clenched Lady Diana's decision.

A bond of loneliness and flowerlessness existed between them. She hailed the other girl deliriously.

"Hi! Are you looking for a place?" she cried. "Come in here. I've got a carriage to myself."

The other was as astonished as relieved.

"Oh, may I? How awfully good of you!" she said warmly, and stepping into the carriage, bestowed her possessions in such small s.p.a.ce as was not already enc.u.mbered. Then she looked at Lady Diana in the doorway with a pair of lovely but rather sad violet eyes that had smoky shadows beneath them.

"I shall have to fight about my ticket with the ticket collector when he comes round. It is only a second-cla.s.s one. I hope you don't mind?"

"Mind!" said Diana. "I hate everyone in authority, and I love rows and c.o.c.ktails and excitement. Still, it might save time to pay."

"It might," said the other "but I'm not going to. There were no second-cla.s.s seats left, so the onus is on them. Besides"--her creamy face flushed faintly and her eyes became defiant--"I can't afford it."

Diana could very well believe it, for she had seldom seen a girl so badly dressed. However, the deep blue eyes that had all sorts of pansy tints lying dormant in them, and the winging black satin hair that looked as if smoke had been blown through it, could not be obscured even by a shabby hat. Diana's own hair being a violent apricot and her eyes of the same colour as a gla.s.s of sherry with the sun on it, she could admire without pain this type so different to her own.

The fact was that they were as striking a pair of girls as any one could hope to meet in a day's march, but the delicate beauty of one was under a cloud which only a connoisseur's eye could see through--badly-cut garments and an unfas.h.i.+onable hat! On the other hand, Lady Diana's highly-coloured and slightly dairymaidish prettiness would have been more attractive in simpler and less costly clothes. While they were coming to these conclusions about each other an inspector of tickets entered the carriage. Diana delightedly braced herself for a row, but there was no need for it. Whether it was the charm of the strange girl's golden voice, or the subtle air of luxury and independence combined with a faint odour of Russian leather and honey that stole from the furs of Lady Diana Vernilands, none can tell, but the inspector behaved like a man under the influence of hypnotism. He listened to the tale of the second-cla.s.s ticket as to words of Holy Writ, and departed like a man in a dream without having uttered a single protest, and at Lady Diana's behest, carefully locking the door behind him. A moment later whistles, shouts, and the clicking of hundreds of farewell kisses signalled the train's immediate departure. The devoted Marney, carrying what appeared to be a bridal bouquet of white lilies and roses, dashed up just in time to make a last attempt to accompany her mistress. But the door was unyielding, and the worst she could do was to claw at the window as she panted alongside the now moving train, crying:

"You'd better let me come with you, now, Miss Diana your Ladys.h.i.+p. . . ."

The latter only waved her hand in kind but firm dismissal.

"Go home and look after papa, Marney, and don't worry about me. I shall be back soon." As the train took a jump and finally fled from the station, leaving Marney far behind, she added thoughtfully, "I don't think!" and burst out laughing.

"Just as though I _would_ hurry back to frowsy old England the first time I've ever managed to get away from it on my own!"

The other girl looked at her with deep, reflective eyes.

"If you had been on your own as much as I have you wouldn't think it such a catch," she remarked, with a little dry smile.

"Oh, wouldn't I! I can't imagine anything more heavenly than having no relations in the world. It must be perfect paradise!"

"It's the paradise I have lived in for three years," said April Poole sombrely, "and any one who likes it can have it, and give me their h.e.l.l instead."

"What!" cried Diana Vernilands, not sympathetic, but astounded and eager.

She stared at the other with envious, avid eyes that filled and brightened at last with an amazing plan. It burst from her like a sh.e.l.l from a gun. "_Let's change places: I be you, and you be me!_"

April considered her, and being very weary of her own destiny, considered the plan also. But though she was as ardent as any one for flyaway schemes and fantastic adventure, this plan looked to her too Arabian-nightish altogether, and not likely to hold water for more than the length of the journey from Waterloo to Southampton.

"How can we? I am a poverty-stricken girl, going out to governess at the Cape. You, a peer's daughter, I suppose, who will be met on the boat and surrounded by every care and attention. . . ."

"Yes, surrounded!" Diana interrupted savagely. With sudden fury she tore off the little sable hat, flung it on the seat beside her and stabbed it viciously with a great pearl pin. "I'm sick of being surrounded! I wish to goodness I were Alexander Selkirk, s.h.i.+pwrecked on a desert island."

"That wouldn't be much fun, either," said April. "I don't think there is much fun anywhere. We have all got what we don't want, and want what we can't get."

"You couldn't _not_ want a face like yours," said Diana, handsomely. It gave her no pain, as has been mentioned before, because April was dark.

If she had been addressing a blonde like herself, wild cats could not have torn such a compliment from Diana Vernilands.

"Couldn't I? Good looks without the surroundings and clothes to put them in are not much of a gift. Beauty in a third-cla.s.s carriage and shabby clothes looks cheap and is fair game for any one's stalking."

"Well, change with me, then," urged Diana. "I'd rather be stalked than gazed at from afar like a brazen image."

She gave her hat another stab. April quivered all over, like a mother who sees a child ill-treated.

"Don't do that," she cried at last, in a poignant voice. She had seen that hat in her dreams for years, but never got so near it before. Diana Vernilands looked at her thoughtfully, then held it out.

"Put it on," she entreated. "Wear it, and be surrounded instead of me.

Oh, for Heaven's sake do! I see you are just as keen as I am, and just as sick of being who you are. Try it on."

She may have meant the hat, or she may have meant the plan. April accepted the hat, and with it the plan. From the moment she saw herself in the gla.s.s her doom was dight. There was a little star-like purple flower, such as never grew on land or sea, nestling in the golden darkness of the fur. It seemed to April a flower that might have been plucked from the slopes of the blue hills of Nirvana, or found floating on the still waters of Lethe in that land where it is always afternoon.

It brought dreams of romance to her heart, and made starry flowers of its own colour blossom in her eyes. She crushed the hat softly down upon her dark, winging hair, crinking and shaping it to frame her face at the right angle. Her fate was sealed.

"All right," she said, in a slow, dreamy voice. "Let's arrange it."