The Oyster Part 10

She thanked him warmly, with flushed cheeks which made her lovely.

"Take her to Brighton some day, down to the sea, for a picnic! Oh, how lovely, and how good of him; he had so much to do, so many friends."

Lord Innistenne, strolling across the gardens, saw the two under the big beech tree--saw Esme reading alone on the veranda.

He walked down to the river, where two long chairs were hidden in a nook of shrubs, a slight, brown-eyed woman sitting in one, sitting palpably waiting.

"Joan, would you do good works?" he said. "Let this day slip for it."

She looked up at him quickly.

"Come with me, use persuasion, get the Chauntsey child back to London to her mother. I'll drive her up."

Joan Blacker looked at the river, seen dimly through the trees, at the wall of shrubs about the hidden nook. They had not many days like this.

Then wistfully she looked at Innistenne's strong, rugged face--a look with a shade of fear in it, the fear which must haunt each woman who has sold her birthright, purity, that what is so much to her may be mere pastime to the man she loves. Joan Blacker might have been moderately unhappy, moderately lonely all her life, if Innistenne had not come across her path.

"The dark Adonis is fitting arrows to his bow," said Innistenne. "He delights in the bringing to earth of foolish, half-fledged birdlings.

We shall be back early, Joan. Come--help me."

She had counted on her morning; on a few hours of the talking women delight in, of tender memories referred to, of future plans discussed.

But without a word she got up.

"She is very pretty, Fred." Joan Blacker stopped once, looked up at Innistenne.

"She may be," he said carelessly. "There is a brick wall named Joan built across my vision, you see."

It was her reward--she was satisfied.

Jimmie Gore Helmsley's black eyes did not smile at a pair of intruders.

He was taking Sybil out in a punt after lunch, with a tea-basket for a picnic. He strolled off now with a last low word to Sybil. "Come to the rose garden. I'll wait there. Bother these people!"

Joan Blacker did not fail in her good deed. She said some simple things to Sybil--told her quietly that the Bungalow was not fit for her; that if her mother realized, or heard, it might stop liberty for evermore.

"To go back to London," cried Sybil, "to the house in Lancaster Gate, to the dreariness of a dull dinner there. Navotsky was to dance to-night. Besides--Mrs Bellew--"

"The servants may tell her that there is a vacant room," said Joan, equably, "otherwise she will not know. And for to-night--we'll take you out somewhere if you like, in London. I warn you your mother does not understand."

When Gore Helmsley, attractive to those who admired him in his flannels, strolled back to look for a Sybil who came not, he only saw the dust of a motor on the road at the back of the house.

"Miss Chauntsey has gone back to London," said Esme. "Her mother, I think, telephoned."

Gore Helmsley nodded carelessly. But Esme, looking drearily out across the gardens, trying hard not to think, had made a bitter enemy.

She was rung up by Denise Blakeney later.

"Yes. Cyril leaves next week. I tell you, Esme, I am afraid--afraid of when he comes back. Be careful of cross lines. No one will know.

Dismiss your maid at once. Come to me here and write to her if you think it best."

Esme hung up the receiver with a sigh. The great scheme was becoming greater, looming before her. But money and liberty and an allowance made it all feasible.

A week later Bertie Carteret sailed for South Africa, and on the same day a broad, quiet man left London for a year's shooting. Both thought of their wives as the big steamers began to churn up the water. But one with wistful longing, looking back at a figure on the quay which waved and waved until it was lost, a blur among other figures; and one whose mouth set grimly as he recalled a good-bye in a luxurious dining-room, arms which he had put away from his neck, and an unsteady voice which had hinted of some confession which he would not hear.

"Later," said Cyril Blakeney, "later." But his eyes were full of bitter hatred for the thing which, for his name's sake, he meant to do.

Some hours after the steamer had left port Marie Leroy was rung up on the telephone.

She stood listening, a curious expression on her dark face, her lips murmuring, "Oui, madame. Oui, certainement, madame."

Esme was dismissing her, was going away with Lady Blakeney, wanted no maid. Marie was to receive extra wages, a superfine character; to pack Madame's things.

Marie walked away, her slim brown fingers pressed together.

"And--what means it?" said the Frenchwoman, softly. "That would I like to know. What means it?"

CHAPTER V

Winter came softly across Italy. There were hours of sunlight, breaths of wind which carried no chill dampness. Here on a sheltered slope, its back to the hills, its windows overlooking stretches of olive groves, a villa had been built. Once a country home for a prince, now patched and painted when a strange tenant took it.

The _Morning Post_ had announced that "Lady Blakeney and Mrs Carteret had left London together for the Continent. Lady Blakeney, having found the strain of the season too much this year, was going to rest by the sea in some quiet part of France." Later, a rumour crept out; there was a reason for the delicacy. After all these years! Denise had just whispered a hint before she left. She was coming home in the spring.

The difficulty of losing oneself was soon forced upon the two wanderers. They had gone without maids; they packed abominably; they were helpless without the attendance they had been used to.

Denise remarked tearfully that she had never put on her own stockings except once, when she was paddling. Esme, less helpless, helped her, but was querulous, full of fancies, ill-pleased with life.

After a time Denise changed her trim dresses for loose coats and skirts. The two moved to Dinard, met a few friends there. Observant people looked shrewdly significant.

It was time then! When? they asked. Oh! some time in the spring. March, Denise said. Yes, it was quite true.

They wrote to friends at home.

Then came a time when they tried to vanish, went to small towns and fretted in dull hotels.

Denise had made inquiries, found out where there was a good doctor. One day the two came to Riccione, a little Italian town, built on a gentle slope, spying at the distant mountains, able, with powerful gla.s.ses, to catch a s.h.i.+mmer of the distant sea.

Luigi Frascatelle, slight and dark, a man immersed in his art of curing, was startled by the visit of two English ladies.

They were taking the Villa Picciani, ten miles out; they were coming in December. One asked for advice, for attendance if necessary.

Frascatelle's dark eyes read the sign words of wealth; the woman who did spokeswoman was brown, slender, distinguished, but wrapped in a long cloak; the other dazzlingly fair, younger, black circles under her brilliant blue eyes.

"Would the signor tell them where to procure servants--men and women?

They would hire a motor. Was there a nurse, a trained one, available for some time? Lady Blakeney was nervous."

"Lady Blakeney!" Luigi looked at the fair girl curiously. "But, Madame," he spoke French, "will not Madame return for the event to England--to the great physicians there--to her own home?"

"Sir Cyril is away; her ladys.h.i.+p is lonely in England; has a fancy for suns.h.i.+ne and for solitude."