The Rustle of Silk Part 22

"My darling nest on the Chilterns, where I'm so seldom able to live. If only I could get away,-but I'm tied to town."

"Next Friday, perhaps,-that's the last, the very last--"

"Well, then, it must be Friday. I can't resist this thing, my dear, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll leave on Thursday. It will give a new bevy of my proteges a little rest and a quiet time for practise. And you can come down on Friday."

"You darling!" (Good for you, de Breze. Very well done, indeed.)

"Now get a pencil and a piece of paper and write everything down. The station is Princes Risborough." (As if Lola didn't know that!) "You go from Paddington and you catch the two-twenty arriving there just before four. I can't send a car to meet you, because my poor old ten-year-old outside would drop to pieces going up to Whitecross. So you must take a station cab and be driven up in time for tea, and you will find one Russian, one Pole, two Austrians, one Dane and a dear friend of mine with a voice like velvet who was a Checko-Slovak during the War and German before and after. A very nice lot, full of talent. I don't know where they're all going to sleep and I'm sure they don't care, so what's it matter? They'll give us music from morning to night and all sorts of fun in between. Killing two birds with one stone, eh?"

Was it the end of the rainbow at last? "Oh, dear Lady Cheyne, what can I say?"

"Nothing more, now, you dear little wide-eyed celandine; wait till we meet again. Run away and leave me to Mrs. Rumigig. It's a case of old frocks on to new linings. Income tax drives us even to that. But I'm very glad, oh, so very glad you came to me, my dear!"

And Lola threw her arms round the collector of stray dogs and poured out her thanks, with tears. One rung nearer, two rungs nearer.-And in the next room, having heroically overcome an almost conquering desire to put her ear to the keyhole, stood Mrs. Rumbold, still suffering from the second of her surprises.

"Do your best to let me have two day frocks and an evening frock," said Lola. "And I will come for them sometime Friday early. Don't fail me, will you, Mrs. Rumbold? You can't think and I couldn't possibly explain to you how important it is."

"Well, I should say not. I should think it is important, indeed! Little Lola Breezy's doing herself well these days, staying with the n.o.bility and gentry and all."

The woman was amazed to the extent of indiscretion. How did a lady's maid, daughter of the Breezys of Queen's Road, Bayswater, perform such a miracle? They were certainly topsy-turvy times, these.

And then Lola turned quickly and caught Mrs. Rumbold's arm. "You are on your honor to say nothing about me to Lady Cheyne, remember, and if, by any chance, you mention my name, bear in mind that it is Madame de Breze. You understand?"

There was a moment's hesitation followed by a little gasp and a bow. "I quite understand, Modum, and I thank you for your custom."

But before Mrs. Rumbold returned to her workroom, in which the trunks looked more perky now, she remained where she stood for a moment and rolled her eyes.

"Well," she asked herself, "did you _ever_? Modum de Breze!-And she looks it too, and speaks it. My word, them orders! Blowed if the modern girl don't cop the current bun. It isn't for me to say anything, but for the sake of that nice little woman in the watchmaker's shop, I hope it's all right. That's all.-And now, your ladys.h.i.+p, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you, if you please? And thank you for comin', I'm sure. Times is that dull--"

VII

When Lola went into Feo's room that evening it was with the intention of asking for her first holiday. It was a large order; she knew that, because her mistress had made innumerable engagements for the week. But this was to be another and most important rung in that ladder, which, if not achieved, rendered useless the others that she had climbed.

She was overjoyed to find Feo in an excellent mood. Things had been going well. The world had been full of amus.e.m.e.nt and a new man had turned up, a pucca man this time, discovered at the Winchfields', constant in his attentions ever since. He owned a string of race horses and trained them at Dan Thirlwall's old place behind Worthing, which made him all the more interesting. Feo adored the excitement of racing.

And so it was easy for Lola to approach her subject and she did so at the moment when she had her ladys.h.i.+p in her power, the curling irons steaming. "If you please, my lady," she said, in a perfectly even voice and with her eyes on the black bobbed hair, "would it be quite convenient for you if I had a week off from Thursday?"

"But what the devil does that matter?" said Feo. "If I don't give you a week off, I suppose you'll take it."

Lola's lips curled into a smile. It was impossible to resist this woman and her peculiar way of putting things. "But I think you know me better than that," she said, twining that thick wiry hair round the tongs as an Italian twines spaghetti round a fork.

"What makes you think so? I don't know you. I haven't the remotest idea what you're like. You never tell me anything. Ever since you've been with me you've never let me see under your skin once. I don't even believe that you're Breezy's niece. I've only her word for it. After Sunday morning's exhibition, I'm quite inclined to believe that you _are_ Madame de Breze masquerading as a lady's maid. If the War was still going on, I might think that you were a spy. A great idea for you to get into this house and pinch the papers of a Cabinet Minister. Yes, of course you can have a week off. What are you going to do? Get married, after all?"

Lola shook her head and the curl went away from her lips. "I want to go down to the country for a little rest," she said.

Something in the tone of Lola's voice caught Feo's ears. She looked sharply at her reflection in the gla.s.s and saw that the little face which had captured her fancy and become so familiar had suddenly taken on an expression of so deep a yearning as to make it almost unrecognizable. The wide-apart eyes burned with emotion, the red lips and those sensitive nostrils denoted a pent-up excitement that was startling. What was it that this strange, secretive child had made up her mind to do-to commit-to lose? "There is love at the bottom of this,"

she said.

And Lola replied, "Yes, my lady," simply and with a sort of pride. And then took hold of herself, tight. If there had been any one person in all the world to whom she could have poured out her little queer story of all-absorbing love and desire to serve and comfort and inspire and entertain and rejuvenate-- But there wasn't one-and it was Mr.

Fallaray's wife who fished to know her secret. Was it one of the ordinary coincidences which had brought, them together-meaningless and accidental-or one of those studied ironies which fate, in its mischievous mood, indulges in so frequently?

"It wouldn't have been any good to deny it. It's all over you like a label. It's an infernal nuisance, Lola, but I'll try and get on without you. If you're not going to get married, watch your step, as the Americans say. I don't give you this tip on moral grounds but from the worldly point of view. You have your living to make and there's Breezy to think about and your people."

She put her hand up and grasped the one in which Lola held the tongs, and drew her round. Strangely enough, this contradictory creature was moved. Whether it was because she saw in Lola's eyes something which no one had been able to bring into her own, who can say? "It's a married man," she told herself, "or it's Chalfont who isn't thinking of marriage." "Go easy, my dear," she added aloud. "Believe only half you hear and get that verified. Men are the most frightful liars. Almost as bad as women. And they have a most convenient knack of forgetting."

And then she released the girl so that she might resume her job, as time was short, and she was dining rather early with the new man at Ranelegh where "Twelfth Night" was to be acted as a pastoral by Bernard f.a.gan's players. All the same, her mind dwelt not so much with curiosity as with concern upon Lola's leave of absence, because she liked the girl and had found her very loyal, consistently cheery and always ready to hand.

"Let me see," she said, with an uncharacteristic touch of womanliness that must have been brought out by the flaming feminism of Lola. "Among the frocks that I hurled at you on Sunday there's pretty certain to be something that you can wear. Help yourself to anything else that you need. You must look nice. I insist on that. And you'll also want something to put these things in. Tucked away somewhere there are one or two dress cases without my initials. They've come in useful on other occasions. Rout them out. I can't think of anything else, but probably you will." And she waved her hand with those long thin capable fingers, as much as to say, "Don't thank me. You'd do the same for me if I were in your shoes."

But Lola did thank her and wound up an incoherent burst by saying, "You're the most generous woman I've ever imagined."

"Oh, well, I have my moments," replied Feo, who liked it all the same.

"Y'see, 'The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin.'" She was very generous and very much interested and if the truth were to be told a little worried too. For all her coolness at the Carlton, Lola seemed to her to be so young and so obviously virginal,-just the sort of girl who would make a great sacrifice, taking to it a pent-up ecstasy for which she might be asked to pay a pretty heavy price. And it was such a mistake to pay, according to Feo's creed.

Finally, dressed and scented and wearing a pair of oddly shaped lapis earrings, she stood in front of a pier gla.s.s for a moment or two, looking herself over, finding under her eyes for the first time one or two disconcerting lines. What was she? Ten years older than this girl whose face was like an unplucked flower? Ten years certainly,-all packed with incidents, not one of which had been touched by ecstasy.

When she turned away it was with a short quick sigh. "d.a.m.n," she said, off on one of her sudden tangents. "I can see myself developing into one of those women who join the Salvation Army because they've lost their looks, or get out of the limelight to read bitter verses about dead sea fruit, if I'm not precious careful." And her mind turned back to the hour with Ellingham in that foolish futuristic room of hers and the way in which he had paced up and down, inarticulate, hands in pockets, and eventually been glad to go. Glad to go,-think of it.-Never mind, here was the man with the race horses. He might be a little medieval, perhaps. And on her way out she put her hand under Lola's chin and tilted up her face. "Mf," she said, "you _have_ got it, badly, haven't you?"

And Lola replied, "Yes, my lady," and felt as though she had never left Queen's Road, Bayswater.

"Well, good luck." And Feo was gone.

VIII

So once again Lola stepped out on to the platform of Princes Risborough station to wait while a sulky porter, thoroughly trades-union in all his movements, made up his mind to carry Feo's two cases out to a cab. He first of all read the name on the labels, p.r.o.nouncing Breze to himself as it was known to Queen's Road, Bayswater. Then, with great deliberation and condescension, having placed a new quid in his mouth, he tilted them on to the barrow and wheeled them along the platform to the station yard, followed by Lola. "Want a cab?" he asked. To which Lola replied, "I don't think I'm quite strong enough to carry them myself."

And he gave her a quick look. "Cheeky," he thought. "Knows enough English fer that, all right." Whereupon he chi-iked the cab driver who was asleep on his box and yelled out, "Don't yer want ter occupy yerself once in a way? Sittin' up there orl day, doin' nothin'! Do yer good to 'ave my job fer a bit. Come on darn. Give a hand with these 'ere. What d'yer think I'm paid fer?"

Lola opened the door of the rickety and rather smelly cab for herself.

Neither of the men had thought of that. And then she handed the porter a s.h.i.+lling and looked him straight in the face with her most winning smile. "It doesn't reward you for your great politeness," she said. "But these are hard times."

And as the cab drove slowly off, the porter spat upon the coin. What did he care for snubs? He was as good as anybody else and a d.a.m.ned sight better, he was, with his labor union and all. Politeness!

Heh!-Missionaries have introduced the gin bottle to the native and completely undermined his sense of primitive honor while trades unions have injected the virus of discontent into the blood of the English workman and made him a savage.

And so once more the white cross seen above the village; once more the Tillage with its chapels and other public houses,-warm old buildings as yet untouched by the hand of progress, which generally means a cheap shop-front and goods made in Germany; once more the road leading up to the Chiltons, with the shadows of old trees cast across. Chilton Park was pa.s.sed on the right, with its high wall, time-worn, behind which Fallaray might even then be walking among his gardens. And presently the cab turned in to the driveway of what had once been a farmhouse, to which, by an architect who was an artist and not a builder, wings had been added. The long uneven roof was thatched, the walls all creeper covered, the windows diamond paned, the door low, wide and welcoming. A smooth lawn was dignified with old oaks and beeches and ablaze with numerous beds of sweet Williams and pansies and all the rustic flowers.

A charming little place, rather perhaps self-consciously pretty, like a set on the stage. But oh, how delightful after Queen's Road, Bayswater, and the labyrinths of similitude.

Lady Cheyne was followed to the door by all her guests and for a moment Lola thought that she had stumbled on a place crowded with European refugees. A more eccentric collection of human various she had never seen, even during that epoch-making evening at Kensington Gore.

"Here you are, then, looking just as if you had stepped out of one of the pictures in the boudoir of the d.u.c.h.ess de Nantes." Lola received a hearty kiss on both cheeks, and her hostess took the opportunity, while so close, of asking an important question in a whisper. "Your name, my dear. I'm too sorry, but really my capacity for remembering names has gone all loose like a piece of dead elastic."

Lola laughed and told her, and then followed her introduction to the little group of hairy children who were all waiting on tenterhooks for a chance to act. It was a comical introduction, because by the time Lady Cheyne had said "Lola de Breze" she had forgotten the names of all her other guests. And so, with a gurgle of laughter, she pointed to each one in turn,-and they stepped forward and spoke; first the women, "Anna Stezzel," a bow and a flash of teeth, "Regina Spatz," a bow and a gracious smile, and then the men, "Salo Impf," "Valdemar Varvascho,"

"Simon Zalouhou," "Max Wachevsky," "w.i.l.l.y Pouff," fired in ba.s.s, baritone and tenor and accompanied by a kiss upon the little outstretched hand. It was all Lola could do to stop herself from peals of laughter.