The Oyster Part 1

The Oyster.

by A Peer.

CHAPTER I

Gleams of bright suns.h.i.+ne came through the windows of the trim little flat into the drawing-room furnished in miniature aping of luxury. The chairs and tables were Sheraton--Sheraton pa.s.sably imitated--the covering rich brocade. Soft white cus.h.i.+on covers, fine as cobwebs, clothed the big squares stuffed with feathers. Late narcissi and early roses made the air heavy with scent. The place was small, but it carried the air of comfort; it was a miniature of its roomy brothers and sisters in big town houses. The door of the dining-room, standing open, showed the same taste. Polished inlaid mahogany, good silver, embroidered table linen. Early as it was there had been strawberries for breakfast, and cream, and hot bread.

"Luncheon at the Berkeley. It will be a good one too. I'm driving with Denise to that show at the d.u.c.h.ess's. Tea at the Carlton. Dining with Robbie at his club; the Gay Delight afterwards; supper at Jules. Oh!

the days are not half long enough."

Long-limbed, slender, gracefully pretty, Esme Carteret turned over the leaves of her engagement-book. Her blue eyes sparkled behind dark lashes; her skin was fair and carefully looked after. She was so bright, so dazzling, that at first sight one missed the selfishness of the weak, red-lipped mouth, the shallowness of the blue eyes.

"Not half long enough," she repeated. "Oh, Bertie, you--"

A flas.h.i.+ng smile, a hand held out, yet in the greeting no look of the real love some women feel for their husbands.

"Well, b.u.t.terfly." Bertie Carteret had a bundle of letters in his hands; he was opening them methodically with an ivory cutter.

A dark man, with a quiet, strong face. Dazzled, attracted by this fair piece of womanhood, loving her as men love when they do not stop to look further than the flesh and blood they covet, and so, married. And now, loving her still, but with eyes which were no longer blinded, with little lines of thought crinkling round his eyes when he looked at her, yet still her slave if she ordered him, thrilling to the satin softness of her skin, the scented ma.s.ses of her hair.

"Well, my b.u.t.terfly," he said, opening another letter.

Esme did not pay her own bills. She had not as yet sufficient wisdom to keep the house accounts. It saved trouble to let Bertie take them.

"Esme child!" He looked at the total written under a long line of figures. "Esme! those cus.h.i.+on covers are not made of gold, are they?"

"No--hand embroidery," she said carelessly. "Everyone gets them."

"They seem to represent gold, you extravagant child."

"Dollie Maynard had them; she kind of crowed over mine last day we had bridge here. I must have things same as other people, Bert. I can't be shabby and dowdy."

"So it seems." He opened several other letters. "Well, we can just do it, girlie, so it doesn't matter. Breakfast now. I was working hard this morning."

"And I was eating strawberries. Bobbie sent them. There are eggs for you."

"Once upon a time laid by a hen," he said resignedly. "Got the stalls for to-night. That blue gown suits you, b.u.t.terfly."

"It ought to," she said, coming in to give him his breakfast. "It cost fifteen guineas."

Bertie Carteret was adjutant of volunteers in London; he had taken it to please Esme, who would not endure the idea of a country station in Ireland.

Now Carteret was going abroad, his adjutancy over. His battalion was in South Africa; he was to join it there until he got something else to do. Esme flashed out at the thought of the place.

"Dust and bottled b.u.t.ter; black servants and white ants. No thank you, Bertie--I won't go."

No one expected sacrifice from Esme; she was too pretty, too brilliant, to endure worry or trouble. Bertie Carteret smiled at her. She should stay at home. They would soon get something else to do, and he would come back.

Esme bent across to him that day, her face set in unwonted thought.

"Just think if your Uncle Hugh had no sons," she said, "he'd leave you everything. We'd be rich then."

Bertie laughed. Two boys made barrier between him and hopes of the Carteret money.

A pleasure-loving pair, absolutely happy in their way. Well enough off to have all they wanted, and pleasant enough to get the rest from their friends.

They chattered through breakfast of engagements, parties, trips, of days filled to the brim. Bertie was lunching at the Bath Club. Esme, with her friend, Denise Blakeney, at the Carlton.

"And oh, Bert--ring up those fruiterer people. Dollie dines here to-morrow. We must have strawberries, and asparagus--the fat kind--and peas, Bert. She had them--Dollie. I don't want her to go away and talk of 'those poor Carterets and their mutton chops'--and send in matron glaces, Bert, and sweets from Buzzard's, will you, and some Pet.i.t Fours for tea."

"Anything else?" he said. "Esme, do you know, my b.u.t.terfly, that we spend every penny we have, and a little more?"

With a laugh she slipped a supple arm about his neck. "And why not?"

she said lightly--"why not, Sir Croaker?"

He drew her to his knee, kissing her firm neck, her soft arms--on fire to her touch.

"She was a witch," he told her, "and a b.u.t.terfly, hovering over a man's heart." She should have her strawberries, her sweeties. "And--what is it?"

For Esme had turned white, put her hand to her throat, a sudden nausea seizing her.

"I've been like that twice before," she said; "it's the racket. Bertie, I don't feel up to luncheon now, and I like to be hungry when I lunch with Denise. Oh, thank you, dear."

For he brought smelling-salts, holding the fragrant, pungent, scented stuff to her nostrils. He was genuinely anxious.

"It's nothing," she said lightly; "something disagreed with me."

"Lunching with Denise?" He lighted his pipe. Carteret was not a cigarette-smoker. "Ever see Blakeney with her now, girlie?"

"No-o," she said reluctantly.

"H'm! I hear they're not too good pals. Denise has been playing the fool with young Jerry Roche--the 'wily fish' as they call him. She'd better not go too far with Cyril Blakeney. I was at school with him--came just when he left. But I knew his brother there also. I tell you, Esme, they're a bad lot to vex."

Esme shook her head thoughtfully.

"Hope Jimmie Helmsley won't be at luncheon," Carteret went on. "Steer clear of him, old dear."

"I'm lunching with him on Sat.u.r.day, Bert."

"Well, don't again. He's a beast. Of course there's no fear of you, but there was the Grange Stukeley girl, poor soul, married off to a parson cousin; and Lettice Greene, and--oh, heaps of his victims."

There are some women who create trust. The dazzle about Esme was not one of warmth. It was cold as she was selfish. Her husband, without realizing this, yet knew that he might trust her implicitly, that beyond mere careless flirtation nothing amused her.

"Well, good-bye, Esme. I must go to do a few things which don't want doing, even as this morning I paraded unwilling youths at seven."

Carteret strolled out. Esme picked up the salts bottle, sniffing at it.