To Love Part 21

The last expression was full of vindictiveness. d.i.c.k was seized with a disgust for his own share in the proceedings; he hoped devoutly that Mrs. Sandeman, a rather austere-faced, tight-lipped woman, would not write and disturb Robert's peace of mind for any doings of his. Also he took a mental resolve to see no more of Mrs. Hayter.

By four o'clock all the pa.s.sengers, with a mild proportion of their luggage, had been transferred to small tugs for transport to Tilbury; for on a further examination into the state of affairs it had been found that the _India_ would probably remain where she was until a certain lightening of her freight should make it easier for her to refloat.

It was three days later, in fact, before d.i.c.k reached London. He found two letters waiting for him at his club; one from Mabel, telling him how glad they would be to see him, could he not make it earlier than the week-end; and one from Mrs. Hayter. Would he come and dine with her that evening? He need not trouble to answer, she was dining all alone and would not wait for him after half-past seven.

"If you can't come to dinner," she had added, "look in afterwards; there is something I rather particularly want to say to you."

He dressed for the evening meal in a vague state of discontent. He had not the slightest intention of going to Mrs. Hayter's, still the thought of her, waiting for him and expecting him, made him uneasy. At one moment he meditated telephoning to her to tell her he was unavoidably prevented from coming, but dismissed the excuse as being too palpably a lie. He was restless, too, and at a loss as to how to spend his evening, the loneliness of being by himself in London after a two years' absence was beginning to oppress him. None of his old pals seemed to be in town--anyway they did not turn up at the club. Finally he decided to look in at the Empire, or one of the neighbouring music-halls, and strolled forth in that direction.

London certainly seemed no emptier than usual. Streams of motor-cars, taxis, and buses hurried along Piccadilly, the streets were busy with people coming and going. Out of the shadows just by the Burlington Arcade a woman spoke to him--little whispered words that he could pa.s.s on without noticing; but she had brushed against him as she spoke, the heavy scent she used seemed to cling to him, and he had been conscious in the one brief glance he had given her, that she was young, pretty, brown-eyed. The incident touched on his mind like the flick of a whip.

He stared at the other women as they pa.s.sed him, meeting always the same bold yet weary invitation of their eyes, the smile which betokened nothing of mirth. And as he stared and pa.s.sed and stared again it grew on him that he was in reality searching for someone, searching those street faces in the same way as once before he had sought among the pa.s.sers-by for one girl's face. The thought was no sooner matured than he hated it--and now he tried to keep his eyes off these women pa.s.sing by, loathing the thought of their nightly pilgrimage, of their shame-haunted trade.

The Empire performance hardly served to distract his thoughts. He was out in the streets again before the ballet turn came on even. It had started to rain, a slight, indefinite drizzle; Leicester Square presented a drab and dingy appearance. The blaze of lights from the surrounding theatres shone on wet streets and slippery pavements. A drunken woman who had been ejected from the public-house at the corner stood leaning against a neighbouring lamp-post; her hat had fallen askew, stray, ragged wisps of hair hung about her face, from time to time she lifted up her voice and shouted at the children who had gathered in a ring to watch her antics. Life was horribly, hurtfully ugly at times. d.i.c.k would have liked to have shaken his shoulders free of it all and known himself back once more on the wind-swept deck of an outgoing steamer.

He strode off in the direction of Trafalgar Square, and still dim, draggled shapes haunted his footsteps, leered at him from the shadows, brushed against him as he pa.s.sed. As he turned into the lighted purlieus of the Strand he paused for a moment, undecided which course to take next, and it was then that he saw Joan again.

She was standing a little in front of him on the edge of the pavement, evidently waiting for a bus. Another girl stood near her, talking in quick, childish excitement, recounting some conversation, for she acted the parts as she spoke. Joan seemed to pay very little attention to her companion, though occasionally she smiled in answer to the other's laughter.

He had recognized her at once! Now he stood with his eyes glued on her, taking in every detail of her appearance--the wide-brimmed hat, the little lace collar showing outside her jacket, the neat shoes.

Even as she talked f.a.n.n.y's bird-like eyes darted here and there among the crowd and lit presently on the young man, so palpably staring at her companion. She edged nearer to Joan and nudged her.

"You have got off, honey," she whispered. "Turn your eyes slowly and you will catch such a look of devotion as will keep you in comfort for the rest of your life."

Joan flushed: f.a.n.n.y could always succeed in bringing the hot blush to her face, even though she had been on tour with the company now for two months. Also she still resented being stared at, though f.a.n.n.y was doing her best to break her in to that most necessary adjunct of their profession. Rather haughtily, therefore, she turned, and for a second his eyes met hers, bringing a quick, disturbing memory which she could in no way place.

At any other time d.i.c.k would have taken off his hat and claimed acquaintance; just for the present moment, though, something held him spellbound, staring. f.a.n.n.y giggled, and Joan, having had time to raise her feelings to a proper pitch of anger, let her eyes pa.s.s very coldly and calmly from the top of the young man's hat to the tip of his boots and back again. Contempt and dislike were in the glance, what f.a.n.n.y called her "Kill the worm" expression. Then No. 11 motor-bus plunged alongside, and "Here we are at last!" called f.a.n.n.y, dragging at Joan's arm.

With a sense of victory in her heart, since the young man had obviously been quelled by her anger, Joan climbed up to the top of the bus and sat down in a seat out of sight. f.a.n.n.y, however, turned to have a final look at the enemy from the top step. As the bus moved, she saw him shake himself out of his trance and start forward.

"Good-night," she called in cheerfully affectionate tones; the conductor turned to stare up at her. "Some other day; can't be done to-night, sonny."

Then she subsided, almost weak with laughter at her own joke, beside a righteously irritated Joan.

"Nearly had the cheek to follow us, mind you," she told her, amid gasps; "properly smitten, he was."

"I wish you had not called out to him," said Joan stiffly. "It is so--so undignified."

f.a.n.n.y quelled her laughter and looked up at Joan. "Undignified," she repeated; "it stopped him from coming, anyway. You don't look at things the right way, honey. One must not be disagreeable or rude to men in our trade, but one can often choke them off by laughing at them."

CHAPTER XX

"Love lent is mortal, lavished, is divine.

Not by its intake is love's fount supplied, But by the ceaseless outrush of its tide."

"And there is little d.i.c.kie," Mabel said; she stood, one hand on the cot, her grey eyes lowered--"he has brought such happiness into my life that sometimes I am afraid."

The baby. Some women were like that, d.i.c.k knew. A child could build anew their world for them and make it radiant with a heaven-sent wonder. He had never thought of Mabel as a mother. He had been almost afraid to meet her after two years away--her letters had given him no clue to her feelings; but then she rarely wrote of herself and she had never been the sort of person to complain. So he had come down to Sevenoaks rather wondering what he would find, remembering their last talk together the day before her wedding. Mabel had met him at the station and driven him back to the house in their car. She had talked chiefly about himself; was he glad to be back?--had he enjoyed the years away?--what plans had he made for the future? But her face, her quiet grey eyes had spoken for her. He knew she was happy, only the reason, the foundation of this happiness, had been a mystery to him until this moment.

"Little d.i.c.kie," he repeated, leaning forward to peer at the small atom of humanity who lay fast asleep. "You have called it after me, then?"

Mabel nodded. "Of course; and don't call him 'it,' d.i.c.k; he is a boy."

A sudden intuition came to her, she lifted her eyes to d.i.c.k's. "Tom wanted him called that, too," she said, speaking a little quickly; "but that is not wonderful, because Tom always wants just exactly what he thinks I do. We will go downstairs now, shall we, d.i.c.k? You know Mother insisted upon a dinner-party in your honour this evening, and we are going on to some awful theatre in Sevenoaks afterwards."

"Good Lord!" groaned d.i.c.k; "why did you let her?"

"I thought you wouldn't be too pleased," Mabel admitted; "but surely you must remember that it is no use arguing with mother about what she calls--amusing us. She took the tickets as a pleasant surprise yesterday when she was in Sevenoaks. As Tom says, 'Let's be amused with a good grace.' d.i.c.k"--she paused on the lowest step to look up at him--"you haven't the slightest idea of how good Tom is; he spoils mother almost as much as father did, and yet he manages her."

"And you," said d.i.c.k, "are absolutely and entirely happy, Mabel?"

"Absolutely and entirely," she answered; he could see the truth of her words s.h.i.+ning in her eyes.

Mrs. Grant loved dinner-parties and going-on to the theatre. It is to be believed that she imagined that the younger people enjoyed them too, because, for herself, she invariably went to sleep half-way through the most brilliant performance--earlier, were the show not quite so good.

d.i.c.k remembered many unpleasant entertainments in his youth which could be traced to this pa.s.sion of Mrs. Grant's. She would drill them into amus.e.m.e.nt, becoming excessively annoyed with them did they not show immediate appreciation, and pleasure is too fragile a dream for such treatment; it can be very easily destroyed.

d.i.c.k and Mabel found her downstairs, giving the final orders as to the setting out of the table to a hara.s.sed and sulky-looking maid.

Everything had always to be done in Mrs. Grant's own particular way, even down to the placing of the salt-spoons. She was the bane of the servants' lives when they were new-comers; if they lived through the persecution they learned how best to avoid her gimlet eyes and could get a certain amount of amus.e.m.e.nt out of hoodwinking her. d.i.c.k contrived to display the correct amount of pleasure at the festivity in prospect for him. He wondered at the back of his mind how glad his mother really was to see him, and strolled away upstairs presently to his own room to unpack and change.

The first had already been accomplished for him by Tom's valet, and the man apparently proposed to stay and help him change, murmuring something about a hot bath being ready.

"Thanks," answered d.i.c.k, "then I will manage for myself; you need not wait."

He stood for some time, the man having slipped discreetly away, staring out of the wide-open window. It was still late summer, and the days stayed very hot. Beyond the well-kept lawn at the back of the house the fields stretched away till they reached the fringe of the forest, and above the trees again rose the chalk hills that lay, he knew, just behind Wrotham. He was thinking vaguely of many things as he stood there; first of Mabel and the new happiness s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. Mabel and her small son; thank heaven, she had won through to such content, for if anyone deserved to be happy it was Mabel. Then little moments from the past two years strayed into his mind. Hot, sun-blazing ports, with their crowds of noisy, gesticulating natives; the very brazen blue of an Indian sky over an Indian sea; the moonlit night that had made him kiss Mrs. Hayter; he could almost feel for one second the throb of her heart against his. Then, like a flash, as if all his other thoughts had been but a s.h.i.+fting background for this, the princ.i.p.al one, Joan's face swung up before him. Where had she been going to that night? Who had her companion been? Why had not he had the courage to speak to her, to follow her at least, and find out where she lived? She was in London, anyway; he would have, even at the risk of hurting Mabel's feelings, to get back to London as soon as possible. It was a huge place, certainly, to look for just one person in, but Fate would bring them together again; he had learned to be a believer in Fate. There was truth, then, behind all the strange stories one heard about Love. A girl's voice, some face in the crowd, and a man's heart was all on flame. The waters of common-sense could do nothing to quench that fire. He would search, ridiculous and absurd as it seemed, till he found her--and then.... His thoughts broke off abruptly; there was a sound from downstairs which might be the dinner-bell, and he had not even had his bath yet.

The dinner-party, specially arranged by Mrs. Grant for d.i.c.k's benefit, consisted of a Mr. and Mrs. Bevis, who lived in a large new house on the other side of the park, their two daughters, Dr. English, who had taken d.i.c.k's place at Wrotham, and a young man from Sevenoaks itself. "Someone in a bank," as Mrs. Grant described him.

d.i.c.k's health was drunk and his mother insisted on "Just a little speech, dear boy," which thoroughly upset his temper for the rest of the evening, so that he found it difficult to be even decently polite to the eldest Miss Bevis, whom he had taken in to dinner. The talk turned, after the speech-making episode, to the theatre they were bound for, Mr.

Jarvis asking young Swetenham if he knew anything of the company and what it was like.

"Rather," the youth answered, "been twice myself this time already. They are real good for travellers. Some jolly pretty girls among them."

"Musical comedy, isn't it?" Mrs. Bevis asked. "Dorothy has always so wanted to see _The Merry Widow_."

"Well, that is what they are playing to-night," Swetenham a.s.sured her, "and I hear it is Miss Bellairs' best part. She is good, mind you, in most things, and there is a girl who dances top-hole."

"I don't know why we have never heard of it before," Mrs. Bevis meandered gently on; "it is so clever of you, Mrs. Grant, to have found that there was a theatre in Sevenoaks at all. I am sure we never dreamed of there being one."

"They use the town hall," Dr. English put in. "If we can guarantee a large enough audience, I expect they will favour us at Wrotham."

"Oh, what a splendid idea," cried the youngest Miss Bevis; "fancy a real live theatrical company in Wrotham."

"I hope it will stay at 'fancy,'" grunted Mr. Bevis. "From what I remember of travelling companies, Wrotham is better without them."