The Rustle of Silk Part 17

Lola shrugged her shoulders. "So far as I know at present, my plans will keep me in town until the end of June." How could she be more definite than that?

So Chalfont had to be satisfied and hope for the best. It was not his habit to drive people into a corner and force confidences. He had told Lola where he was to be found and she had promised to keep in touch with him. That, at any rate, was good. "We haven't decided where to go to-night," he said. "Don't you think we'd better make up our minds?"

Lola rose from the table. The pleasant dining room at the Carlton was still well-filled, and the band was playing one of those French things with an irresistible march time which carry the mind immediately to the Alcazar and conjure up a picture of an outdoor stage crowded with dancing figures seen through a trickle of cigarette smoke and gently moving branches of young leaves. "Don't let's make up our minds what we'll do till we get to the very doors. Then probably one or other of us will have a brain wave. In any case I'm very happy. I've loved every minute of this evening and it's so nice to be with you again."

Chalfont touched her arm. He could not resist the temptation. "I'd sell my soul in return for a dozen such nights," he said, and there was a Simpkins quiver in his voice and a Treadwell look of adoration in his eyes. He was in uniform, having later to return to the Guards encampment in Kensington Gardens. They pa.s.sed through the almost empty lounge into the hall with its cases of discreet, ruinous jewelry on the walls under gleaming lights, and there a man in plain clothes drew himself up as Chalfont approached and clicked his heels.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Ellingham," said Chalfont. "How are you, my dear chap?

Thought you were in India."

"I was, Sir. Got back yesterday. Curious place, London, by Jove."

Chalfont turned to Lola. "Madame de Breze, may I introduce my friend Colonel Ellingham?"

Those tall dark men with a touch of the Oriental in them somewhere-Lola caught her breath, but managed to smile and say the conventional thing.

But at the sound of her voice, the woman who had been standing with her back to them, talking to the obsequious _maitre d'hotel_, whirled round.

It was Feo-Feo with her eyes wide and round and full of the most astonis.h.i.+ng mischief and amus.e.m.e.nt-Feo with her mouth half open as though she were on the point of bursting into a huge laugh. Lola, that discreet little Lola, that little London mouse, niece of the stiff old Breezy, daughter of those little people in Queen's Road, Bayswater, with a brigadier general, if you please, the famous Sir Peter Chalfont with a comic cork arm to catch whom every match-making mother had spread her net for years!

Without turning a hair, Lola held out her hand impulsively. "My dear,"

she said in a ringing voice, "I thought you said that you were going to the Ritz."

Her own words as she had left her dressing room came back into Feo's mind. "You're a jolly good sportsman, child."-Well, although she could hardly believe her eyes and the incident opened up the widest range of incredulity, she would show this astonis.h.i.+ng girl that there were other sportsmen about. "We went to the Ritz," she replied, as though to one of her "gang," "but it looked hideously depressing and so we came on here."

And she went forward and put her arm around Lola's shoulder in her most affectionate way. How well her old frock came out on that charming figure. She suspected the shoes and stockings. "So this is what you do, Lola, when the cat's away!"

And Lola laughed and said, "Oh, but doesn't one deserve a little holiday from time to time?"

"Of course,-and you who are so devoted to good causes."

"The best of causes and the most beautiful." Lola would return the ball until she dropped.

Feo knew this and had mercy, but there was an amazing glint in her eyes.

The little monkey!

It was obvious to Lola that Feo had not met Chalfont or else that she had met him and was not on speaking terms. Either way how could she resist the chance that had been brought about by this extraordinary contretemps. So she said, "Lady Feo, may I introduce my old friend, Sir Peter Chalfont,-Lady Feodorowna Fallaray."

It so happened that these two had not met,-although Feo's was not the fault. It was that Chalfont disliked the lady and had gone deliberately out of his way to avoid her acquaintance. He bowed profoundly.-Lola, her name was Lola. What a dear little name.

"We've got a box at the Adelphi," said Feo. "Berry's funny and Grossmith's always good. There's room for four. Won't you come?" What did she care at the moment whether this invitation made Ellingham's eyes flick with anger or not. All this was too funny for words.-That little monkey!

"Thanks so much," said Lola, with a slight drawl, "but it so happens that we're going round to the House of Commons to hear a debate. Perhaps we can foregather some other night." And she looked Feo full in the face, as cool as a fish.

It didn't matter what was said after that. There was a murmur from the other three and a separation, Ellingham marching the laughing Feo away, Chalfont crossing over to the hatroom, greatly relieved. Lola, alone for a moment, stood in the middle of what seemed to be an ocean of carpet under hundreds of thousands of lights, with her heart playing ducks and drakes, but with a sense of thrill and exultation that were untranslatable. "What a sportsman," she thought.-"But of course she noticed her stockings."

And when Chalfont returned to her side he said, "I don't like your knowing that woman. You seem frightfully pally. You didn't tell me that she was a great friend of yours."

"Well," said Lola, "I haven't told you very much of anything, have I?

That's because I like to hear you talk, I suppose."

"You draw me out," said Chalfont apologetically. "But what's all this about the House of Commons? First I've heard of it."

"Oh, just an idea," said Lola lightly. "Couldn't you w.a.n.gle it?" She had caught the word from him.

"I don't know a blessed soul in that monkey shop, except Fallaray."

"Who better?" asked Lola. "Let's go round, send in your name and ask Mr.

Fallaray for a card."

"My dear Lola-I beg your pardon, I mean, my dear Madame de Breze-if you remember, Fallaray didn't know me from Adam that night at the Savoy. I really don't think I can push myself in like that, if you'll forgive me.

Let's take a chance at the Gaiety. No one's going to the theater just now. There's sure to be plenty of room."

By this time they were in the street, with a huge commissionaire waiting for a glance from Chalfont to bring up a taxi with his silver whistle.

It was another lovely night, clear and warm and windless,-a night that would have been admirable for Zeppelins. Lola went over to the curb and looked up at all the stars and at the middle-aged moon. Think of that light so white and soft on the old gardens of Chilton Park.-"Don't let's go in to a fuggy building," she said. "Let's walk. London's very beautiful at night. If you won't take me to the House of Commons, at any rate walk as far as the Embankment. I want to see the river. I want to see the little light gleaming over Parliament. It's just a whim."

"Anything you say," said Chalfont. What did it matter where they went, so long as they were together? Lola,-so that was her name.

VII

They crossed to Trafalgar Square, the figure of Nelson silhouetted against the sky. They went down Northumberland Avenue to the Embankment and crossed the road to the river side. The tide was high but the old river was deserted and sullen. Westminster Bridge faced them, alive with little lights, and on the opposite bank the dark buildings ran along until they joined the more cheerful looking St. Thomas's Hospital, whose every window was alight. Pre-war derelicts who were wont to clutter the numerous seats were back again in their old places, their dirty ranks swelled by members of the great new army of unemployed. Many of these had borne arms for England and wore service ribbons on their greasy waistcoats. Two or three of them, either from force of habit or in a spirit of irony and burlesque, sprang up as Chalfont approached and saluted. It threw a chill through his veins as they did so,-those gallant men who had come to such a pa.s.s. The House of Commons and the Victoria Tower loomed ahead of them.

To Chalfont, Parliament stood as a mere talking shop in which a number of uninspired egotists schemed and struggled in order to cling to office and salaries while the rest answered to the crack of the party whip and used whatever influence they had for self-advertis.e.m.e.nt,-commercializing the letters which they had bought the right to place against their names. He detested the place and the people it sheltered and regarded it as a great sham, a sepulchre of misplaced hopes and broken promises. But to Lola, who walked silently at his side, it symbolized the struggles of Fallaray, stood dignified and with a beautiful sky line as the building in which that man might some day take his place as the inspired leader of a bewildered and a patient country. And as she walked along on the pavement which had been worn by the pa.s.sing of many feet, glancing from time to time at the water over which a pageant of history had pa.s.sed, her heart swelled and her love seemed to throw a little white light round her head. Was it so absurd, so grotesque, that she should have in a sort of way grown up for and given herself to this man who had only seen her once and probably forgotten her existence? Sometimes it seemed to her not only to be absurd and grotesque but impudent,-she, the daughter of the Breezys of Queen's Road, Bayswater, the maid who put waves into the wiry bobbed hair of an irresponsible lady of fas.h.i.+on, and who, from time to time, masqueraded in the great city under the name of a relative long since dead and forgotten. Nevertheless, a tiny figure at the side of Chalfont, her soul flowered at that moment and she knew that she would very willingly be burnt at the stake like Joan of Arc if, by so doing, she could rub away from Fallaray's face even one or two of the lines of loneliness which life had put upon it.

Chalfont was silent, because he was wondering how far he dared to go with this girl who had talked about a "wee mystery" and who did not hold him in sufficient confidence to tell him where she lived or let him see her home. This was only the second time that he had met her and he asked himself with amazement whether it could be true that he was ready to sacrifice career, position and everything else for her sake. There were other women who had flitted across his line of vision and with whom he had pa.s.sed the time. They had left him untouched, unmoved, a confirmed bachelor. But during the days that he had spent in an eager search for Lola he knew that this child had conquered him and brought him down with a crash. He didn't give a single curse who she was, where she came from or what was this mystery to which she referred. He loved her. He wanted her, and he would go through fire and water to make her his wife. And having come to that conclusion, he broke the silence hitherto disturbed only by the odd wailing of machinery on the other side of the river and by the traffic pa.s.sing over Westminster Bridge like fireflies. He put his hand under Lola's elbow, stopped her and drew her to the stonework of the embankment. "In an hour or two," he said, "I suppose you will disappear again and not give me another thought until you cry out, 'Horse, horse, play with me,' and there isn't a horse. I can't let that happen."

Instinct and the subconscious inheritance of a knowledge of men kept Lola from asking why not. The question would obviously provide Chalfont with a dangerous cue.

So Chalfont went on unhelped. He said, "Look here, let's have all this out. I want you to marry me. I want you to be perfectly frank and treat me fairly. You're a widow and you appear to be alone. I don't want to force your hand or ask you to haul down your fourth wall. Nor do I hope that you will care more about me than any girl after two meetings. I just want to know this. Are there any complications? Is there anything in the way of my seeing you day after day and doing my utmost to show you that I love you more than anything on earth?"

Simpkins, Treadwell, Chalfont. But where, oh, where was Fallaray?

Lola didn't know what to say. What was there in her that did these things to men? She looked up into Chalfont's face and shook her head.

"You're a knight," she said. "You stand in silver armor with a crusader's cross on your chest. You came to my rescue and proved that there are good men in this world. You have made an everlasting friend of me but,-I love some one else. Oh, Sir Peter Chalfont, I love some one else. He doesn't know it. He may never know it. I may never see him again. I may die of love like a field daisy put in a dry vase, but when I cross the Bridge I shall wait until he comes, loving him still."

Leaning on the parapet side by side they watched the waters go by, dark and solemn, undisturbed even by the pa.s.sing of a barge, licking the stonework away below. And as they stood there, moved to great emotion, Big Ben sang the hour. It was ten o'clock. On a seat behind them four men were grouped in att.i.tudes of depression,-hungry, angry. A little way to their right stood that place in which the so-called leaders sat up to their necks in the problems of the world, impotent, bewildered.

And finally Chalfont said, "I see. Well, I wish you luck, little Lola, and I congratulate you on loving like that. Oddly enough, we both love like that. I wish to G.o.d--"

And as Lola moved away she put her hand through his arm as a sister might have done, which was better than nothing; and they walked back along that avenue of broken men, that street of weary feet, up Northumberland Avenue and back into the lights and the whirl. "I think I'll leave you now," said Lola. "There's a cold hand on my heart. I want to be alone."

And so, without a word, Chalfont hailed a pa.s.sing taxi, opened the door, handed Lola in, and stood back, very erect, very simple, with his cork arm most uncomic. And before the cab started he flung up his left hand to the peak of his cap, not as though saluting a company of boy scouts or a queen, but the woman he loved, the woman he would always love, the woman for whom he would wait on the other side of the Bridge.

And all the way to Dover Street Lola wept.