Bridg, and Hines, who has been adding up, finds that I overestimated my
indebtedness. I will bring you two hundred this afternoon, and if ever I
do marry riches, be sure that you and the boys shall have all you want.”
A dark red tide rose to Lady Bridgminster’s hair. She stooped
impulsively and kissed her son. “You are a dear generous boy!” she
exclaimed. “And we are all cats! cats! Every one of us.”
And leaving her son puzzled as much by her unusual demonstration as by
that cryptic arraignment of her sex, she swept her long draperies out of
the room.
Ordham dined that evening in the beautiful house, which, under
artificial light, looked more than ever a palace evoked by the stroke of
a wand for a fairy princess to dwell in. The princess wore misty robes
of white, with green leaves in her hair, her ethereal loveliness
rendered almost nebulous by her mother’s substantial gown of black jet,
and the five big footmen in dark green plush. The dinner might have been
sent over from Bignon’s. Certainly these Americans knew how to spend
their money. Their very newness inspired them to aim at effects that
never would enter the old indifferent heads of the homogeneous races.
Mabel had almost nothing to say. She made no effort whatever, but Mrs.
Cutting, accustomed all her life to lead in conversation, as well as to
keep it from flagging, entertained the guest so conscientiously that he
hardly had time to feel snubbed by the young beauty. Mrs. Cutting’s talk
rarely bored him, for she had a wide range of subjects and never clung
too long to any one of them, after the fashion of some Americans, and he
at least found time to realize that he could not have stood the same
amount of chatter from a miss of one season. Mabel’s new reticence
became her, the more particularly as when she did speak it was to the
point; and it was more and more apparent that she was not the charming
little goose he had thought her in Munich. But he was taken aback, as
they left the dining room, to receive a polite good night from the young
lady, who floated down the long line of rooms and disappeared.
Mrs. Cutting bit her lip and tapped her fan in manifest annoyance as she
led the way to the front drawing-room. “Mabel has a slight headache,”
she said apologetically. “She always droops a little in warm weather.
She wants to return to the country; but I shall continue to be very
frank with you, Mr. Ordham—I am most anxious that you should know one
another.”
“It looks as if the less she knows me the better she may like me.”
Ordham spoke with some humour; he was piqued but not angry. “However, I
shall always be grateful to you for letting me look at her.”
“Ah! You do think my chick a beauty?” There was a little break in Mrs.
Cutting’s cultivated voice, but she did not lift her eyes to Ordham’s.
“I have never seen a girl half as beautiful.”
Mrs. Cutting rose and moved about with uncommon restlessness. “Oh, if it
could only be!” she cried. “Why not? Why not? I cannot live forever. The
few relatives I have live in New York, and Mabel is so thoroughly
Europeanized. She must marry. There is no other solution for a dainty
helpless creature like that. Some man must take care of her as well as
of her fortune. I have set my heart upon it, and I have had very few
disappointments in life. I really could not endure the failure of this
darling project. And you two should be as mutually attracted as the
first man and the first woman. I cannot understand it!”
“I can fancy myself feeling the full force of the attraction if
encouraged a bit. But if Miss Cutting will not speak to or look at me—”
“Girls are the eternal enigmas—and the most provoking little beasts
that nature ever invented. She was quite mad about you when we left
Munich. Now she fancies that no man will ever come up to her
ideal—whatever it may be! She has no inordinate social ambitions;
titles here and in France have been offered to her. But let us not talk
about it. Come and see me. I positively refuse to return to the country
and the society of tutors. They can come here. If Mabel droops, she can
take a tonic. I could remain in this London I adore, winter and summer,
autumn and spring. . . . And who knows? All this indifference, this
nonchalance, may be but a ruse to draw you on. No one knows a girl less
than her mother. And as to girls in general—there is no end to their
nonsense and affectations. Fortunately they outgrow them, or what would
become of the race? Do light another cigarette and let us sit on the
balcony. I am too old for moonlight and balconies, and shall only
inspire you with vain regrets—but never mind. At least it will be
pleasant for me, and unselfishness is good for the soul!”
XXXIV
WHERE IS ROSAMOND HAYLE?
Ordham was somewhat surprised that his mother did not inflict him with
Rosamond Hayle at luncheon or dinner, and wondered if she had accepted
the two hundred pounds in the nature of a bribe. He was more than
grateful to be spared the sight of that high-born heiress’s prominent
teeth and leaden hair; but beyond forbearing to thrust the young woman
upon him in person, Lady Bridgminster made no effort at self-abnegation.
She talked of her Rosamond’s virtues constantly and even hinted that
hair could be “touched up.” Bony structure was hopeless, but by an
elaborate arrangement of red-brown tresses and large hats, front teeth
could be thrown into the background, particularly when assisted by a
pink and white complexion; and this, she pledged her word, the healthy
English girl now possessed. Nor were her eyes at all bad, and she had
eyebrows, which were a distinct advantage when fixing up a plain girl.
As for figure—what were dressmakers for? Besides, these lovely æsthetic
gowns were invented to make skeletons the fashion.
Ordham acquired a certain adroitness in changing the current of his
mother’s thought by introducing the subject of her poverty. This was
real enough. Her father grew stingier day by day, and her mother, once
the essence of worldliness (she, too, had been a beauty), now
compromising with heaven through the expensive medium of royal
charities, gave her smaller checks every year. How she lived at all
heaven only knew. To be sure she had friends, and, thank God! was
invited for Homburg or the Riviera every season, and never got round to
the same country houses two years in succession. But all that meant
clothes, clothes! Heavens, how things did cost! Sometimes she had wished
that the boys were girls, but think what _they_ would have cost in
clothes. And girls made slaves of their mothers. As to the boys, they
were better off without her and could be kept in the country the year
round. Their health was wonderful. If they had ever had even the measles
or whooping-cough, she had not heard of it. Mortimer (the family
solicitor) paid their bills.
If Lady Bridgminster had a preference for any of her children, for any
mortal, indeed, save herself, it was for her oldest son, whom she
understood in some things so well, and in others not at all. He was
interesting, he never bored her. The other five were fine orthodox
straightforward English boys, who were only happy when out of doors or
satisfying their mighty appetites. She was a little uncomfortable about
her second son, Stanley, now twenty-two, and, no doubt, expecting to be
entertained in town occasionally. But until her brilliant eldest brought
gold to the coffers Stanley must content himself where he was, and there
was plenty of room for him, during his holidays, in the dower house. She
ran down to see him occasionally, as well as to Kent, and the boys were
immensely flattered; Stanley, in particular, when she honoured
Sandhurst, showing her off to his companions with a pride not without
its pathos. She would willingly have showered money on them, poor souls,
and had the youngest up for the pantomimes; but what could she do?
Ordham went one day to visit his brothers. He was fond of them in the
abstract, although after the first half hour he was at a loss for
subjects of conversation and wearied of theirs. They were somewhat in
awe of their magnificent brother, whom they regarded as the head of the
family, Bridgminster being more or less of a myth to them. Ordham upon
this occasion felt pride as ever in their fine manly appearance, but
when the youngest frankly demanded tips was mortified not to be able to
respond generously, and wished that he had not come. To them he stood in
the shoes of their indulgent father; moreover, Ordham was one of those
unfortunate persons who, while possessing the very special gift of
wearing new clothes for the first time as if they had been in his
wardrobe for at least two months, yet impressed the beholder as a young
man of unlimited income, and on the Continent sent the prices up in
every shop he entered. He left the house in Kent so deeply vexed at
being obliged to give his brothers silver instead of gold that he was in
a frame of mind to call on Rosamond Hayle; but in London he found a note
from his mother informing him that she had run down to Brighton for the
night with that paragon, and he dismissed all things disagreeable from
his mind and spent the evening with the Cuttings.
He had lunched or dined or driven with them every day for a fortnight,
always entering the cool exquisite house with a sensation of gratitude,
especially now that he spent his mornings in the Foreign Office, for the
weather continued hot. And this house, with shades drawn and great
bunches of flowers in priceless bowls, always struck him afresh as the
most perfect setting possible for the young châtelaine, always drifting
about in a pale diaphanous gown; she wore a new one every time he saw
her. Mrs. Cutting invariably wore black,—jet, lace, or net,—and he
sometimes wondered if she deliberately were making a foil of herself;
she was still young enough to take pleasure in colours. This question
did not give him pause, however, his mental processes being now wholly
engaged with the riddle of his sentiments toward Mabel Cutting. Was he
on the edge of love, at last? He had gone so far as to resolve to marry
her if she would have him, for wed he must, and never could he hope to
find another girl with so much to recommend her. But he was still
reluctant to give up his liberty; could he but fall a victim to the
grand passion, hesitation would be consumed, and he should count himself
the happiest of mortals—that is, if she would accept him. He forced his
mind to dwell upon her and angrily reproached himself for being as cold
as a fish. That she interested and intrigued him beyond any girl he had
ever met was indisputable, and he increasingly longed for talks alone
with her, that he might explore the tempting by-paths of that mind and
character. But Mrs. Cutting was a stickler for the proprieties and did
not believe in exposing young people to the criticism of servants.
Occasionally Mabel enlivened and talked rapidly and pleasantly about a
new play or a bit of news in the artist or social world, but soon
relapsed into her usual dreamy silence and left the burden of the
conversation to her mother. Once she deliberately picked up a book and
read for an hour; and upon another occasion, when the weather was more
than commonly warm, she took a little gold box from her pocket and
powdered her nose. This Ordham found quite adorable, and was even
fascinated by the independence that prompted her to turn from the
conversation that did not interest her to the literature that did.
Mrs. Cutting was ever bright and entertaining, being a passed mistress
of the art of small talk, but there were times when Ordham hated the
sound of her voice, and was not sure whether his impatience were due to
his desire to talk with the daughter, or to the possible fact that
Margarethe Styr had spoilt him for the conversation of other women.
Although grateful that she was not close enough to divert him from his
purpose, he felt the sudden deprivation of her society; the more as her
letters were brief and unsatisfactory. She was on her _Gastspiel_ and
the weather was very warm; but she promised him long letters upon her
return to Munich—that is, unless he delightfully returned, as he had
promised. This he now knew he should not do until he was safely married;
but he was not the man to give his beloved friend a hint of the
matrimonial state of his mind or the fluid condition of his affections.
Styr pictured him dutifully dancing attendance upon his mother, who, for
reasons, was detained in London.
Once he gently insinuated to Miss Cutting that he should like to read
with her during the long afternoons, or at least discuss with her the
books that occupied her morning hours. But to these hints she was
impervious, and, by way of compensating him, Mrs. Cutting proposed a
game of tennis every morning before his duties commenced. To this bait
Ordham rose like a famished trout, and it somewhat surprised him that
Mabel accepted the suggestion no less eagerly than himself. The three
drove out to a court in Chelsea every morning at half-past eight, and he
played for an hour or two with a radiant vision in a short skirt, a red
jersey, and tumbling yellow hair. Mabel did not play a particularly good
game, but her interest was youthful and eager, and her admiration of his
so outspoken, when her manners, like her toilette, were in déshabillé,
that he wondered if there were no end to the charms of this remarkable
girl.
XXXV
YOUTH
One Saturday morning, while dressing, Ordham received a note from Miss
Cutting, which, in phrases as light and graceful as her handwriting,
conveyed the information that her mother was in bed with a headache, and
that unless dear Lady Bridgminster—who, she feared, no longer liked
them—would consent to act as chaperon, their game of tennis must be
postponed until Monday. He answered that he knew of nothing that would
give his mother more pleasure, but as she always slept until ten he
hesitated to awaken her. He was disconsolate, and so forth, and so
forth. At eleven, he casually presented himself at the familiar door in
Grosvenor Square, and upon being told that Mrs. Cutting was indisposed,
entered, as a matter of course, waved the footman aside, and wended his
way up to the music room, whence issued the strains of Chopin’s
_Impromptu in D_. He stood in the doorway until the unconscious Mabel
had finished, listening critically, for Mabel had always refused to play
for him. Ordham had no technical knowledge of music, but he had heard a
great deal of it because it appealed powerfully to those tracts in his
brain which were not mental; he therefore realized that if Mabel’s
performance lacked the subtle appeals that go with the velvet touch and
depth of expression, there was no doubt of the correctness and
brilliancy of her execution. He was rather gratified than otherwise at
this lack of a quality that belonged to the maturer mind, not to
innocent girlhood. When she had finished, he went forward, and she rose
with a blush, the first with which she had favoured him. She looked
startled, almost frightened.
“Mom—mother—” she began.
“You will forgive me? Please do. I really could not put in the whole day
alone. If you turn me out, I shall be driven to accept an invitation to
the country, and I should hate it. Come and talk to me for a bit.”
His eyes coaxed even more than his voice. She led the way to the front
drawing-room and seated herself in a chair beside the open window, her
poise quite recovered, and talked to him with her inimitable girlish
graciousness about nothing in particular. Her old loquacity was
outgrown, it was evident; but with her mother ill and a guest on her
hands, courtesy demanded that she should make an effort.
But Ordham was determined to seize this opportunity to explore her mind;
he had come for no other purpose. Only for the moment was he content to
sit and admire her, although she had never looked more like a lovely
French princess; that puzzled one, perhaps, who asked why, since the mob
had no bread, they did not eat cake. She wore a white gown with a blue
sash and a blue ribbon in her hair. Her repose was extraordinary in so
young a girl, but once or twice Ordham fancied he detected a nervous
compression of her lips. Her large golden brown eyes, however, from
which the dreams had been politely banished, smiled at him with a
concentration singularly flattering after his many failures to capture
even their wandering attention.
“I wish you would tell me what you read,” he said abruptly; “I have
wondered and wondered if you care for any of my favourites.”
“I should never dare to tell you what mine are, for I am sure you would
despise them. I happen to know what your favourites are—and I have been
permitted to read only a few of the foreign classics—mother does not
think I should. But books were made to be read and studied, not to be
discussed; don’t you think so? I am reading hard in the hope of one day
becoming something more than a butterfly, but I have had so little time!
Don’t examine me!”
Ordham thought this enchantingly modest. “Why should not we read
together? There is so much I should like to get through, but one needs
an incentive in this weather. That would be the strongest!”
An expression singularly like alarm flitted through those radiant orbs,
but the explanation came in her cry: “Not yet! Not yet! When you come
back to England next time. Then I shall know so much more. How perfectly
wonderful of you to have passed those terrible examinations—I don’t
mean that it was wonderful for you, although so many fail, but you have
so much to distract your mind from study. Where do you expect to go
first?”
“Oh, St. Petersburg, Rome, Constantinople.”
“It is like you not to want to go back to Paris or to be sent to
Washington. All of those capitals must be so perfectly interesting.”
It was a few moments before he realized that she had deftly led the
conversation far from literature and was making him talk about himself.
He deliberately returned to his exploitations, for nothing in life now
interested him as much as the mind hidden behind that full luminous
brow, those unfathomable eyes. He had taken a long drive the night
before, thinking of Styr and sharply realizing that life without mental
companionship would be insupportable. There had been a return of those
half-comprehended mutterings of a deeper companionship still, and the
whisper that Styr alone held the key to a locked room in his soul; but
he was by no means inclined to force the lock and analyze the contents
of that room, being vaguely but uneasily conscious that if he did he
should suddenly find himself shot out of his present harbour into stormy
seas. He had concluded that if this beautiful and accomplished girl
really possessed an intellect that could be cultivated to understand and
companion his own, and would marry him, he should be an ingrate to ask
more of life.
“Why ‘not yet’? Do you forget that I am only twenty-four? I really know
nothing at all. If it were not for the fact that nobody ever forced me
to study and I put in a good part of the time reading in the library at
Ordham, and again, if I had not happened to be much attracted by the
Continental theatre, I should be quite ignorant.”
“Really?” She opened her eyes at this paradoxical jumble in a fashion
which suggested the old simile, “saucer.” “You have the reputation of
being quite too frightfully clever.”
“I wish I were! It is merely that I am not athletic. All my numerous
relations are, and they think that as I am not, I must have contracted
the vice of brains. But it is all a mistake. I am sure you could teach
me. Let us read Meredith together.”
She looked as if about to cry. “I—I—have been dying to read Meredith,”
she faltered; “but mother does not think he is quite proper. She does
not approve very much of novels, anyway. I console myself with history
and memoirs,—and—and—I—well—”
Her cheeks were stained with a beautiful color. She dropped her long
eyelashes, hesitated for a full minute, during which Ordham—why, he
could not define—held his breath, then raised her eyes to his with a
glance of dazzling, of unmistakable coquetry. Its effect, after her long
period of indifference, was electrical, and the remark which followed
that direct appeal of youth to youth made him turn white.
“Let us talk about that fortnight in Munich,” she almost whispered. “I
was so desperately in love with you, poor little soul; and you—you were
not quite indifferent. You might have written me one little letter.”
“I—I—” he stammered. “I banished your memory. It was my only refuge. I
should not have learned the little German I did. I should have followed
you—”
“I am glad that you did not. I was such a little goose—”
“You were enchanting!”
She shook her head. “But only for two weeks! Otherwise, German or not,
you would have followed. Even now, I am afraid you think me stupid; but
at least I have learned not to bore people when they can listen to
mother. Besides, she does not approve of girls talking very much. But I
have thought of ten thousand things I should love to talk to you about.
Books? Oh, that is only one. Of course I cannot think of any of them
now. That is always the way.”
“You might have given me a glance once in a while to let me know you
recognized my existence! I have always been made to feel that I was
exclusively your mother’s friend.”
“Well—” She lifted her shoulder in the French manner which expresses
many words. Then her eyes discarded coquetry and became sombre. “One
hates the idea of being put on exhibition. That was spared me until you
came. But of course you know—you would be a fool if you didn’t—that
mother is dying to have us marry. That is enough to make a girl hate a
man. But now that I can see you don’t care a bit about it, I like you
much better.” And she rewarded him with the sweetest smile he had ever
seen.
Ordham was cold from head to foot, but he answered steadily: “But I do
care about it. I want to marry you very much.”
“Oh!” She pouted until her lips looked so kissable that Ordham flushed
darkly. Then she became dignified and reserved once more. It was as if
she dropped a veil before all that was still too young in her, and
became the maiden of many millions and superior mind. But he saw that
she clenched her hands in a fold of her gown to keep them from shaking.
“Are you proposing?” she asked gently.
“Is that the tone you assume when about to refuse a man?”
“I don’t think I ever want to marry.”
“Nor did I until I met you. I hated the thought of it.”
“I don’t mean—I mean that one should love very much to marry. That
seems more difficult than learning Chopin or—or—literature! All girls
dream of the prince—but he does not seem to come to me.”
“You just told me that you were fond of me once.”
“Oh, at that age! It is quite ten years ago. I like to have you come
here—oh, immensely! But love!”
“Then you do not hate me? Sometime I have felt sure that you did.”
“Sometimes I have. As I said—no girl enjoys being thrown at a man’s
head. I feared you would think I had a hand in it.”
“I never flattered myself.”
“Then you really are unlike other men.”
“Do you care for any one else?”
“Oh, no. I have an American cousin, Bobby Driscom, who is arriving in a
week or so from New York. He and his father are bankers and take care of
our affairs. I used to think him handsomer than any god could possibly
be, but I have not seen him for two years.”
Ordham experienced such torments of jealousy that he bit his lips and
beat a tattoo on the floor with his foot. “Does that mean—Tell me—do
you dislike me now that you find I want to marry you? You said that my
only charm—”
“Was that you were not in love with me.”
“But I am!”
“I think you only want to marry me—as you put it before. I won’t say a
word about my horrid money, because I know perfectly well you would not
marry for that alone. But you think I would make a good all-round wife
for a diplomat—”
“How can you say such things?”