WOMAN'S WILES
Arnold sprang to his feet. It was significant that, after his first
surprise, he spoke to Fenella with his head half turned towards his
companion, and an encouraging smile upon his lips.
"I had no idea that we were coming here," he said. "We should not
have thought of intruding. It was your chauffeur who would not even
allow us to ask a question."
"He obeyed my orders," Fenella replied. "I meant it for a little
surprise for you. I thought that it would be pleasant after your
drive to have you call here and rest for a short time. You must
present me to your friend."
Arnold murmured a word of introduction. Ruth moved a little in her
seat. She lifted herself with her left hand, leaning upon her stick.
Fenella's expression changed as though by magic. Her cool,
good-humored, but almost impertinent scrutiny suddenly vanished. She
moved to the side of the motor car and held out both her hands.
"I am so glad to see you here," she declared. "I hope that you will
like some tea after your long ride. Perhaps you would prefer Mr.
Chetwode to help you out?"
"You are very kind," Ruth murmured. "I am sorry to be such a trouble
to everybody."
Arnold lifted her bodily out of the car and placed her on the edge
of the lawn. Fenella, a long parasol in her hand, was looking
pleasantly down at her guest.
"You will find it quite picturesque here, I think," she said. "It is
not really the river itself which comes to the end of the lawn, but
a little stream. It is so pretty, though, and so quiet. I thought
you would like to have tea down there. But, my poor child," she
exclaimed, "your hair is full of dust! You must come to my room. It
is on the ground floor here. Mr. Chetwode and I together can help
you so far."
They turned back toward the house and passed into the cool white
hall, the air of which was fragrant with the perfume of geraniums
and clematis. On the threshold of Fenella's room they were alone for
a moment. Fenella was summoning her maid. Ruth clung nervously to
Arnold. The room into which they looked was like a fairy chamber,
full of laces and perfume and fine linen.
"Arnold," she whispered, "you are sure that you did not know about
coming here?"
"I swear that I had no idea," he answered. "I would not have thought
of bringing you without telling you first."
Then Fenella returned and he was banished into the garden. At the
end of the lawn he found Mr. Weatherley, half asleep in a wicker
chair. The latter was apparently maintaining his good spirits.
"Glad to see you, Chetwode," he said. "Sort of plot of my wife's, I
think. Your young lady friend in the house?"
"Mrs. Weatherley was kind enough to take her to her room," Arnold
replied. "We have had a most delightful ride, and I suppose it was
dusty, although we never noticed it."
Mr. Weatherley relit his cigar, which had gone out while he dozed.
"Thought we'd like a little country air ourselves for the week-end,"
he remarked. "Will you smoke?"
Arnold shook his head.
"Not just now, thank you, sir. Is that the river through the trees
there?"
Mr. Weatherley nodded.
"It's about a hundred yards down the stream," he replied.
"Bourne End is the nearest station. The cottage belongs to my
brother-in-law--Sabatini. I believe he's coming down later on. Any
news at the office yesterday morning?"
"There was nothing whatever requiring your attention, sir," Arnold
said. "There are a few letters which we have kept over for
to-morrow, but nothing of importance."
Mr. Weatherley pursed his lips and nodded. He asked a further
question or two concerning the business and then turned his head at
the sound of approaching footsteps. Ruth, looking very pale and
fragile, was leaning on the arm of a man-servant. Fenella walked on
the other side, her lace parasol drooping over her shoulder, her
head turned towards Ruth's, whose shyness she was doing her best to
melt. Mr. Weatherley rose hastily from his chair.
"God bless my soul!" he declared. "I didn't know--you didn't tell
me--"
"Miss Lalonde has been a great sufferer," Arnold said. "She has been
obliged to spend a good deal of her time lying down. For that
reason, to-day has been such a pleasure to her."
He hurried forward and took the butler's place. Together they
installed her in the most comfortable chair. Mr. Weatherley came
over and shook hands with her.
"Pretty place, this, Miss Lalonde, isn't it?" he remarked. "It's a
real nice change for business men like Mr. Chetwode and myself to
get down here for an hour or two's quiet."
"It is wonderfully beautiful," she answered. "It is so long since I
was out of London that perhaps I appreciate it more, even, than
either of you."
"What part of London do you live in?" Fenella asked her.
"My uncle and I have rooms in the same house as Mr. Chetwode," she
replied. "It is in Adam Street, off the Strand."
"Not much air there this hot weather, I don't suppose," Mr.
Weatherley remarked.
"We are on the top floor," she replied, "and it is the end house,
nearest to the river. Still, one feels the change here."
Tea was brought out by the butler, assisted by a trim parlor-maid.
Fenella presided. The note of domesticity which her action involved
seemed to Arnold, for some reason or other, quaintly incongruous.
Arnold waited upon them, and Fenella talked all the time to the
pale, silent girl at her side. Gradually Ruth overcame her shyness;
it was impossible not to feel grateful to this beautiful, gracious
woman who tried so hard to make her feel at her ease. The time
slipped by pleasantly enough. Then Fenella rose to her feet.
"You must carry Miss Lalonde and her chair down to the very edge of
the lawn, where she can see the river," she told Arnold.
"Afterwards, I am going to take you to see my little rose garden. I
say mine, but it is really my brother's, only it was my idea when he
first took the place. Mr. Weatherley is going down to the
boat-builder's to see some motor-launches--horrible things they are,
but necessary if we stay here for the summer. Would you like some
books or magazines, Miss Lalonde, or do you think you would care to
come with us if we helped you very carefully?"
Ruth shook her head.
"I should like to sit quite close to the river," she said shyly,
"just where you said, and close my eyes. You don't know how
beautiful it is to get the roar of London out of one's ears, and be
able to hear nothing except these soft, summer sounds. It is like a
wonderful rest."
They arranged her comfortably. Mr. Weatherley returned to the house.
Fenella led the way through a little iron gate to a queer miniature
garden, a lawn brilliant with flower-beds, ending in a pergola of
roses. They passed underneath it and all around them the soft,
drooping blossoms filled the whole air with fragrance. At the end
was the river and a wooden seat. She motioned to him to sit by her
side.
"You are not angry with me?" she asked, a little timidly.
"Angry? Why should I be?" he answered. "The afternoon has been
delightful. I can't tell you how grateful I feel."
"All the same," she said, "I think you know that I laid a plot to
bring you here because I was curious about this companion of yours,
for whose sake you refused my invitation. However, you see I am
penitent. Poor girl, how can one help feeling sorry for her! You
forgive me?"
"I forgive you," he answered.
She closed her parasol and leaned back in her corner of the seat.
She seemed to be studying his expression.
"There is something different about you this afternoon," she said.
"I miss a look from your face, something in your tone when you are
talking to me."
He shook his head.
"I am not conscious of any difference."
She laughed softly, but she seemed, even then, a little annoyed.
"You are not appreciating me," she declared. "Do you know that here,
in the wilderness, I have put on a Paquin muslin gown, white shoes
from Paris, white silk stockings--of which you can see at least two
inches," she added, glancing downwards. "I have risked my complexion
by wearing no hat, so that you can see my hair really at its best. I
looked in the glass before you came and even my vanity was
satisfied. Now I bring you away with me and find you a seat in a
bower of roses, and you look up into that elm tree as though you
were more anxious to find out where the thrush was singing than to
look at me."
He laughed. Through the raillery of her words he could detect a
certain half-girlish earnestness which seemed to him delightful.
"Try and remember," he said, "how wonderful a day like this must
seem to any one like myself, who has spent day after day for many
months in Tooley Street. I have been sitting up on the hills,
listening to the wind in the trees. You can't imagine the difference
when you've been used to hearing nothing but the rumble of drays on
their way to Bermondsey."
She looked up at him.
"You know," she declared, "you are rather a mysterious person. I
cannot make up my mind that you are forced to live the life you do."
"You do not suppose," he replied, "that any sane person would choose
it? It is well enough now, thanks to you," he added, dropping his
voice a little. "A week ago, I was earning twenty-eight shillings a
week, checking invoices and copying letters--an errand boy's work;
pure, unadulterated drudgery, working in a wretched atmosphere,
without much hope of advancement or anything else."
"But even then you leave part of my question unanswered," she
insisted. "You were not born to this sort of thing?"
"I was not," he admitted; "but what does it matter?"
"You don't care to tell me your history?" she asked lazily.
"Sometimes I am curious about it."
"If I refuse," he answered, "it may give you a false impression. I
will tell you a little, if I may. A few sentences will be enough."
"I should really like to hear," she told him.
"Very well, then," he replied. "My father was a clergyman, his
family was good. He and I lived almost alone. He had an income and
his stipend, but he was ambitious for me, and, by some means or
other, while I was away he was led to invest all his money with one
of these wretched bucket-shop companies. A telegram fetched me home
unexpectedly just as I was entering for my degree. I found my father
seriously ill and almost broken-hearted. I stayed with him, and in a
fortnight he died. There was just enough--barely enough--to pay what
he owed, and nothing left of his small fortune. His brother, my
uncle, came down to the funeral, and I regret to say that even then
I quarreled with him. He made use of language concerning my father
and his folly which I could not tolerate. My father was very simple
and very credulous and very honorable. He was just the sort of man
who becomes the prey of these wretched circular-mongering sharks.
What he did, he did for my sake. My uncle spoke of him with
contempt, spoke as though he were charged with the care of me
through my father's foolishness. I am afraid I made no allowance for
my uncle's peculiar temperament. The moment the funeral was over, I
turned him out of the house. I have no other relatives. I came to
London sooner than remain down in the country and be found a
position out of charity, which is, I suppose, what would have
happened. I took a room and looked for work. Naturally, I was glad
to get anything. I used to make about forty calls a day, till I
called at your husband's office in Tooley Street and got a
situation."
She nodded.
"I thought it was something like that," she remarked. "Supposing I
had not happened to discover you, I wonder how long you would have
gone on?"
"Not much longer," he admitted. "To tell you the truth, I should
have enlisted but for that poor little girl whom I brought down with
me this afternoon."
His tone had softened. There was the slightest trace of a frown upon
her face as she looked along the riverside.
"But tell me," she asked, "what is your connection with her?"
"One of sympathy and friendliness only," he answered. "I never saw
her till I took the cheapest room I could find at the top of a gaunt
house near the Strand. The rest of the top floor is occupied by this
girl and her uncle. He is a socialist agitator, engaged on one of
the trades' union papers,--a nervous, unbalanced creature, on fire
with strange ideas,--the worst companion in the world for any one.
Sometimes he is away for days together. Sometimes, when he is at
home, he talks like a prophet, half mad, half inspired, as though he
were tugging at the pillars which support the world. The girl and he
are alone as I am alone, and there is something which brings people
very close together when they are in that state. I found her fallen
upon the landing one day and unable to reach her rooms, and I
carried her in and talked. Since then she looks for me every
evening, and we spend some part of the time together."
"Is she educated?"
"Excellently," he answered. "She was brought up in a convent after
her parents' death. She has read a marvellous collection of books,
and she is very quick-witted and appreciative."
"But you," she said, "are no longer a waif. These things are
passing for you. You cannot carry with you to the new world the
things which belong to the old."
"No prosperity should ever come to me," he declared, firmly, "in
which that child would not share to some extent. With the first two
hundred pounds I possess, if ever I do possess such a sum," he
added, with a little laugh, "I am going to send her to Vienna, to
the great hospital there."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Two hundred pounds is not a large sum," she remarked. "Would you
like me to lend it to you?"
He shook his head.
"She would not hear of it," he said. "In her way, she is very
proud."
"It may come of its own accord," she whispered, softly. "You may
even have an opportunity of earning it."
"I am doing well enough just now," he remarked, "thanks to Mr.
Weatherley, but sums of money like that do not fall from the
clouds."
They were both silent. She seemed to be listening to the murmur of
the stream. His head was lifted to the elm tree, from somewhere
among whose leafy recesses a bird was singing.
"One never knows," she said softly. "You yourself have seen and
heard of strange things happening within the last few days."
He came back to earth with a little start.
"It is true," he confessed.
"There is life still," she continued, "throbbing sometimes in the
dull places, adventures which need only the strong arm and the
man's courage. One might come to you, and adventures do not go
unrewarded."
"You talk like your brother," he remarked.
"Why not?" she replied. "Andrea and I have much in common. Do you
know that sometimes you provoke me a little?"
"I?"
She nodded.
"You have so much the air of a conqueror," she said. "You look as
though you had courage and determination. One could see that by your
mouth. And yet you are so much like the men of your nation, so
stolid, so certain to move along the narrow lines which convention
has drawn for you. Oh! if I could," she went on, leaning towards him
and looking intently into his face, "I would borrow the magic from
somewhere and mix a little in your wine, so that you should drink
and feel the desire for new things; so that the world of Tooley
Street should seem to you as though it belonged to a place inhabited
only by inferior beings; so that you should feel new blood in your
veins, hot blood crying for adventures, a new heart beating to a new
music. I would like, if I could, Arnold, to bring those things into
your life."
He turned and looked at her. Her face was within a few inches of
his. She was in earnest. The gleam in her eyes was half-provocative,
half a challenge. Arnold rose uneasily to his feet.
"I must go back," he said, a little thickly. "I forgot that Ruth is
so shy. She will be frightened alone."
He walked away down the pergola without even waiting for her. It was
very rude, but she only leaned back in her chair and laughed. In a
way, it was a triumph!