The Return of the Prodigal Part 19

"Well," he said, "it's so jolly risky. These things, you know, only end one way."

f.a.n.n.y's eyes said plainly that to _their_ vision all sorts of ways were possible.

"If it were any other man but----" He stopped short at Furnival's name.

f.a.n.n.y lowered her eyes almost as if she had been convicted of indiscretion.

"You see," she said, "any other man wouldn't do. He's the one and only man. There never was any other. That's the awful part of it for her."

"Then why on earth did she marry the other fellow?"

"Because Furny couldn't marry her. And he wouldn't, either. That's not his way."

"I know it's not his way. And if Viveash took steps, what then?"

"Then perhaps--he'd have to."

"Good Lord----"

"Oh, it isn't a deep-laid plan."

"I never said it was."

He didn't think it. Marriages had been made at Amberley, and divorces, too; not by any plan of f.a.n.n.y's, but by the risks she took. Seeing the dangerous way she mixed things, he didn't, he couldn't suspect her of a plan, but he did suspect her of an unholy joy in the prospect of possible explosions.

"Of course," she said, reverting to her vision, "of course he'd have to."

She looked at Straker with eyes where mischief danced a fling. It was clear that in that moment she saw Laurence Furnival the profane, Furnival the scorner of marriage, caught and tied: punished (she scented in ecstasy the delicate irony of it), so beautifully punished there where he had sinned.

Straker began to have some idea of the amus.e.m.e.nt f.a.n.n.y got out of her house parties.

For a moment they had no more to say. All around them there was silence, born of Mrs. Viveash and her brooding, of young Reggy's trouble with Miss Probyn, and of some queer triangular complication in the converse of Brocklebank, Lady Paignton, and Mr. Higginson. In that moment and that pause Straker thought again of Miss Tarrant. It was, he said to himself, the pause and the moment for her appearance. And (so right was he in his calculation) she appeared.

II

He saw her standing in the great doorway of the east wing where the three steps led down on to the terrace. She stood on the topmost step, poised for her descent, shaking her scarf loose to drift in a white mist about her. Then she came down the terrace very slowly, and the measured sweep of her limbs suggested that all her movements would be accomplished to a large rhythm and with a superb delay.

Her effect (she had not missed it) was to be seen in all its wonder and perfection on Laurence Furnival's face. Averted suddenly from Mrs. Viveash, Furnival's face expressed the violence of his shock and his excitement. It was clear that he had never seen anything quite like Philippa Tarrant before, and that he found her incredibly and ambiguously interesting. Ambiguously--no other word did justice to the complexity of his facial expression. He did not know all at once what to make of Philippa, and, from further and more furtive manifestations of Furnival's, Straker gathered that the young man was making something queer. He had a sort of sympathy with him, for there had been moments when he himself had not known exactly what to make. He doubted whether even f.a.n.n.y Brocklebank (who certainly made the best of her) had ever really known.

Whatever her inscrutable quality, this year she was, as f.a.n.n.y had said, more so than ever. She _was_ stupendous; and that although she was not strictly speaking beautiful. She had no color in her white face or in her black hair; she had no color but the morbid rose of her mouth and the brown of her eyes. Yet Mrs. Viveash, with all her vivid gold and carmine, went out before her; so did pretty f.a.n.n.y, though fresh as paint and burnished to perfection; as for the other women, they were nowhere. She made the long golden terrace at Amberley a desert place for the illusion of her somber and solitary beauty. She was warm-fleshed, warm-blooded. The suns.h.i.+ne soaked into her as she stood there. What was more, she had the air of being entirely in keeping with Amberley's grand style.

Straker saw that from the first she was aware of Furnival. At three yards off she held him with her eyes, lightly, balancing him; then suddenly she let him go. She ceased to be aware of him. In the moment of introduction she turned from him to Straker.

"Mr. Straker--but--how delightful!"

"Don't say you didn't expect to see me here."

"I didn't. And Mr. Higginson!" She laughed at the positive absurdity of it. "_And_ Mr. Lawson and Miss Probyn."

She held herself a little back and gazed upon the group with her wide and wonderful eyes.

"You look," she said, "as if something interesting had happened."

She had seated herself beside Straker so that she faced Mrs. Viveash and young Furnival. She appeared not to know that Furnival was staring at her.

"_She's_ the only interesting thing that's happened--so far," he muttered. (There was no abatement of his stare.) Mrs. Viveash tried to look as if she agreed with him.

Miss Tarrant had heard him. Her eyes captured and held him again, a little longer this time. Straker, who watched the two, saw that something pa.s.sed between them, between Philippa's gaze and Furnival's stare.

III

That evening he realized completely what f.a.n.n.y had meant when she said that Philippa was more so than ever. He observed this increase in her quality, not only in the broad, ma.s.sive impression that she spread, but in everything about her, her gestures, her phrases, the details of her dress. Every turn of her head and of her body displayed a higher flamboyance, a richer audacity, a larger volume of intention. He was almost afraid for her lest she should overdo it by a shade, a touch, a turn. You couldn't get away from her. The drawing-room at Amberley was filled with her, filled with white surfaces of neck and shoulders, with eyes somber yet aflood with light, eyes that were perpetually at work upon you and perpetually at play, that only rested for a moment to accentuate their movement and their play. This effect of her was as of many women, approaching, withdrawing, and sliding again into view, till you were aware with a sort of shock that it was one woman, Philippa Tarrant, all the time, and that all the play and all the movement were concentrated on one man, Laurence Furnival.

She never let him alone for a minute. He tried, to do him justice he tried--Straker saw him trying--to escape. But, owing to Miss Tarrant's multiplicity and omnipresence, he hadn't a chance. You saw him fascinated, stupefied by the confusion and the mystery of it.

She carried him off under Mrs. Viveash's unhappy nose. Wherever she went she called him, and he followed, flushed and shamefaced. He showed himself now pitifully abject, and now in pitiful revolt. Once or twice he was positively rude to her, and Miss Tarrant seemed to enjoy that more than anything.

Straker had never seen Philippa so uplifted. She went like the creature of an inspiring pa.s.sion, a pa.s.sion moment by moment fulfilled and unappeased, renascent, reminiscent, and in all its moments gloriously aware of itself.

The pageant of Furnival's subjugation lasted through the whole of Friday evening. All Sat.u.r.day she ignored him and her work on him.

You would have said it had been undertaken on Mrs. Viveash's account, not his, just to keep Mrs. Viveash in her place and show her what she, Philippa, could do. All Sunday, by way of revenge, Furnival ignored Miss Tarrant, and consoled himself flagrantly with Mrs. Viveash.

It was on the afternoon of Sunday that Mr. Higginson was seen sitting out on the terrace with Miss Tarrant. Reggy Lawson had joined them, having extricated himself with some dexterity from the toils of the various ladies who desired to talk to him. His att.i.tude suggested that he was taking his dubious chance against Mr.

Higginson. It was odd that it should be dubious, Reggy's chance; he himself was so a.s.sured, so engaging in his youth and physical perfection. Straker would have backed him against any man he knew.

f.a.n.n.y Brocklebank had sent Straker out into the rose garden with Mary Probyn. He left Miss Tarrant on the terrace alone with Mr.

Higginson and Reggy. He left her talking to Mr. Higginson, listening to Mr. Higginson, behaving beautifully to Mr. Higginson, and ignoring Reggy. Straker, with Mary Probyn, walked round and round the rose garden, which was below Miss Tarrant's end of the terrace, and while he talked to Mary Probyn he counted the rounds. There were twenty to the mile. Every time he turned he had Miss Tarrant full in view, which distracted him from Mary Probyn. Mary didn't seem to mind. She was a nice woman; plain (in a nice, refined sort of way), and she knew it, and was nice to you whether you talked to her or not. He did not find it difficult to talk to Mary: she was interested in Miss Tarrant; she admired her, but not uncritically.

"She is the least bit too deliberate," was her comment. "She calculates her effects."

"She does," said Straker, "so that she never misses one of them.

She's a consummate artist."

He had always thought her _that_. (Ninth round.) But as her friend he could have wished her a freer and sincerer inspiration. After all, there _was_ something that she missed.

(Tenth round.) Miss Tarrant was still behaving beautifully to Mr.

Higginson. Mary Probyn marveled to see them getting on so well together. (Fifteenth round.)

Reggy had left them; they were not getting on together quite so well.

(Twentieth round.) They had risen; they were coming down the steps into the garden; Straker heard Miss Tarrant ordering Mr. Higginson to go and talk to Miss Probyn. He did so with an alacrity which betrayed a certain fear of the lady he admired.

Miss Tarrant, alone with Straker, turned on him the face which had scared Mr. Higginson. She led him in silence and at a rapid pace down through the rose garden and out upon the lawn beyond. There she stood still and drew a deep breath.

"You had no business," she said, "to go away like that and leave me with him."

"Why not? Last year, if I remember----"