The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece Part 7

"Well, Mrs. Waterlow evidently didn't think it gimcrackery, or, if she did, she didn't mind. It looked to me, I confess, an exquisite thing.

But her admiration may have lent it its enchantment."

Gwendolen's eyes now fixed themselves more searchingly than before.

"Mrs. Waterlow? Did Mrs. Waterlow buy it? How did you know it was Mrs.

Waterlow? I thought you'd never met her."

"I haven't; but I heard Mr. Glazebrook call her by her name. She'd wanted to buy a red lacquer box that I spotted in the window and had gone in to get for you, my dear Gwen. It was too expensive for her,--so that it is yours,--and she went rummaging into the back shop and found your box with the things just as you and Mr. Glazebrook had left them, and in no time she'd disinterred the paG.o.da."

Gwendolen apparently was so arrested by his story that she forgot for the moment to thank him for the lacquer box.

"Do you know her?" he asked.

"Know her? Know Cicely Waterlow? Why, I've known her since she first came to live here, years ago. She's a very dear friend of mine,"

Gwendolen said, adding: "How much did she pay for it? That wretched man gave me only fifteen s.h.i.+llings for the lot."

"He made her pay forty-five s.h.i.+llings for the paG.o.da. I suspect myself that it's worth ten times as much. Does she care for things, too--lacquer and engraved gla.s.s?"

Gwendolen still showed preoccupation and, he fancied, a touch of vexation.

"Care for them? Yes; who with any taste doesn't care for them? Cicely has very good taste, too, in her little way. She doesn't know anything, but she picks up ideas and puts them together very cleverly. I can't help thinking that she'd never have given the paG.o.da a thought if my white porcelain hadn't educated her. I really can't believe that it's good, Owen."

Owen waived the point.

"Who is Mr. Waterlow?" he asked.

"He has been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. He died only a year after their marriage. A very delightful man, so people say who knew him.

And Cicely lost her little girl, to whom she was pa.s.sionately devoted, five years ago; she has never really recovered from that. She used to be so pretty, poor Cicely! She's lost it all now. She cried her very eyes out. She has a little money and lives with her mother-in-law, old Mrs.

Waterlow, who is very fond of her. They don't entertain except in the quietest way, or go out much, and I do what I can to give Cicely a good time. I often have her here to tea when I have interesting people staying."

"Oh, that's good. Do count me as interesting enough and ask her while I'm here."

"Interesting enough, my dear Owen! I don't suppose that Cicely often has a chance of meeting such an interesting man as you. Of course I'll ask her," said Gwendolen. Then, remembering his gift: "It _was_ nice of you to get me a red lacquer box, Owen. I adore red lacquer, and I'm quite sure, whatever you and Cicely Waterlow may say, that it's worth a hundred of your white paG.o.das."

Mrs. Waterlow came to tea next afternoon, the last of Owen's stay. The drawing-room was crowded, and Owen, when she was announced, was enjoying a talk with a dismal-looking old philosopher who had plaintive, white hairs on his nose and trousers that bagged irremediably at the knees.

"Yes, indeed, I know her well," said Professor Selden, as Owen questioned him. "I play chess with her once a week. Her little girl was a great pet of mine. You never saw the little girl?"

"Never, and I've not yet met Mrs. Waterlow. She is most charming-looking."

"The little girl was so much like her," said Professor Selden, sadly.

"Yes, she is a charming woman. Don't let me keep you from meeting her. I am going to sit down here while our young friend Dawkins plays. You know Dawkins? Between ourselves, Mrs. Conyers thinks too highly of him."

Mrs. Waterlow's eyes turned upon him as he limped up to her and Gwendolen, and smiling, she said, "Why, I saw you yesterday in Mr.

Glazebrook's shop."

"Yes," said Owen, "and there is the red lacquer box."

"And you, Cicely, bought my paG.o.da," said Gwendolen.

"Your paG.o.da?" Mrs. Waterlow questioned, her eyes, that seemed to open with a little difficulty, resting on her hostess with some surprise.

"Was the paG.o.da yours?"

"Yes, mine," said Gwendolen. "It came in a box of rubbish,--you saw the kind of rubbish,--a legacy from an old aunt, and I bundled it off to Glazebrook. Owen says it is really good. Is it?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Waterlow.

"I'm sure it is," said Owen, "and I liked the accuracy with which you fell in love with it at first sight."

"I did fall in love with it, good or bad," said Mrs. Waterlow. "Don't tell me that you want it back again, Gwendolen. But if it was a mistake, of course----"

He recognised in her the note of guilelessness and, with some decision, for he actually perceived an eagerness in Gwendolen's glance, interposed with, "But Gwendolen thinks it gimcrackery, and wouldn't have it at any price. Isn't it so, Gwendolen?"

Poor Gwendolen was looking a little glum; but she was the most unresentful of creatures.

"Indeed, it is," she said. "I did think it gimcrackery; but, to tell the truth, I never really saw it at all. I can't believe you'd have seen it, Cicely, standing on its worsted mat in my Aunt Pickthorne's drawing-room. But I wouldn't dream, of course, of taking it back; and if it's really good, I'm more glad than I can say that my loss should be your gain. Now, won't you and Owen sit down here and listen to my wonderful Perceval Dawkins? Oh, he is going to astonish the world some day."

Mrs. Waterlow and Owen, in the intervals of the ensuing music, talked together. Seen more closely, he found that her face, though not beautiful, was even more singularly delightful than he had thought it.

She had eyes merry, yet tired, like those of a sleepy child, and sweet, small, firm lips and a glance and smile at once very frank and very remote. There was about her none of that aroma of sorrow that some women distil from the tragedies of their lives, and wear, even if unconsciously, like an allurement. He felt that in Mrs. Waterlow sorrow had been an isolating, a bewildering, a devastating experience, making her at once more ready to take refuge in the trivialities of life and more unable to admit an intimacy into the essentials. Yet the spring of vitality and mirth was so strong in her that in all she said he felt a quality restorative, aromatic, fragrant, as if he were walking in spring woods and smelt everywhere the rising sap and the breath of violets. She was remote, blighted, yet buoyant. When she rose to go, he realised with sudden dismay that to-day was his last in Chislebridge and that he should not see her again for who knew how long.

"Is the paG.o.da placed?" he asked her. "Does it fulfil your expectations?"

"Yes, indeed," she said. "I spent two hours yesterday in was.h.i.+ng and mending it. It is immaculate now, as lovely as a pearl."

"I wish I could see it," said Owen.

"Why, pray, then, come and see it. Can you come to tea with me and my mother-in-law to-morrow?"

"I'm going away to-morrow," said Owen, dismally. And then he bethought him. "Can't I walk back with you now? Is it too late? Only five-thirty."

"Not in the least too late. Mamma will still be having tea, and she loves people to drop in. But ought you to come away?" Mrs. Waterlow glanced round the crowded room.

"I'll not be missed," he a.s.sured her with some conscious speciousness.

Gwendolen, indeed, had time only for a little stare of surprise when he told her that he was going to look at the paG.o.da with Mrs. Waterlow. She was receiving new guests, richly furred and motor-veiled ladies who had come in from the country and were expatiating over the beauties of the red lacquer cabinets, Gwendolen's latest acquisitions.

"That will be delightful," she said; "and now Owen will see that sweet drawing-room of yours, dearest. You have made it so pretty!"

Owen observed that Mrs. Waterlow, while maintaining all the suavities of intercourse, did not address Gwendolen as dearest.

It was not far to Mrs. Waterlow's, and he said, in reply to her question, that he liked walking, if she didn't mind going slowly on his account. He found himself telling her, then, about his lameness. A bad fall while skating in boyhood had handicapped him for life. The lamps had just been lighted and the evening of early spring was blurred with mist. Catkins hung against a faintly rosy sky, and in the gardens that they pa.s.sed the crocuses stood thickly. Owen had a sense of adventure poignant in its reminiscent magic. Not for years had he so felt the savour of youth. He realised, with a deep happiness, that Mrs. Waterlow liked him; sometimes she laughed at things he said, and once or twice when her eyes turned on him he fancied in them the same expression of happy discovery with which she had looked at the paG.o.da. Well, he reflected, if she thought him delightful, too, she had had to get through a great many dusty newspapers to find him.

Mrs. Waterlow lived, away from the gardened houses of Chislebridge, in a small but rather stately house with a Georgian facade which stood on one of the narrower, older streets. They went up two or three stone steps from the pavement and knocked at a very bright and ma.s.sive knocker, and the door was opened by a middle-aged Quakerish maid. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, and Mrs. Waterlow led him in.

Owen's astonishment, when he entered, prompted him to stand still and to gaze about him; but luckily he could not yield to the impulse, for he had to cross to the fire, near which, behind her tea-table, old Mrs.

Waterlow sat, and had to be presented to her and to the middle-aged, academic-looking lady who was having tea with her. He was glad of the respite, for he had received a shock.

Old Mrs. Waterlow had dark, authoritative eyes and white hair much dressed under black lace, and the finest of hands, decorated with old seals and old diamonds. She must, he felt, be a companion at once inspiriting and disquieting, for she had the demeanour of a naughty, haughty child, and, as she held Owen in talk for some moments, he perceived that her conversation was of a sort to cause alarm and amus.e.m.e.nt in her listeners. Poor old Professor Selden, who was mentioned, offered her an opportunity for the frankest witticisms, and,--when her daughter-in-law protested,--"Yes, dear, I know you are fond of him," the old lady replied, "and so am I; but he is, all the same, very like a damp potato that has begun to sprout."