It was two months later than this meeting, and nearly eight months
after his first meeting with Rachel Davison, when Gerard Buckland, as
he was “doing” the Academy with a listless air on a hot afternoon in
June, came suddenly upon a sight which at once changed his listlessness
into excitement of the most violent kind.
In front of him, with half a dozen Provincial and suburban loungers in
between, were two girls, both beautifully dressed, of whom Gerard at
once recognized the elder to be Rachel Davison.
The transformation, however, from the plainly dressed and dowdy girl he
had met a few months ago at the Aldingtons, to the woman in a trained
dress of écru lace, with a big brown hat trimmed with long ostrich
plumes shading from palest pink to deepest crimson, was so amazing, so
complete, that he for a moment doubted whether he had made a mistake.
For the change was not in dress only. The beauty of the brilliant
Rachel was of that type which is greatly enhanced by handsome dress,
and she appeared ten times more beautiful now than she had done in the
shabby clothes of the year before.
The other girl Gerard guessed to be her sister, and a more charming
contrast it would have been impossible to find than that of the pale
dark beauty and the pink-and-white fair one beside her.
The younger girl was dressed in an ankle-length skirt of black lace, a
blouse to match with elbow sleeves, and long black kid gloves to meet
them. Her large mushroom hat was black also, and the only relief to
the somber hue besides her golden hair and brilliant blonde coloring,
consisted in a bunch of sweet peas which was tucked into her dress.
The good looks and smart appearance of the two girls attracted the
attention of the crowd in the rooms to such a degree that wherever they
went the people followed them, and Gerard had difficulty in forcing his
way through the admiring mob to Rachel’s side.
The sight of her had confused his thoughts, made his heart beat fast,
and revived, with extra vividness, the intense interest he had from the
first felt in the girl.
With some diffidence he greeted her, and was relieved to find that
she did not “cut” him, but holding out her hand with a smile, while a
little tinge of pink color appeared in her cheeks, greeted him by name,
thus showing that she had not, as he had feared, quite forgotten him.
“I’ve been most anxious for the pleasure of meeting you again, and
I’ve asked the Aldingtons about you, but you haven’t been to see them
lately, they said,” he stammered, although he felt as he spoke that it
was rather a stupid thing to say.
She blushed a little more.
“I really haven’t much time for visiting now,” she said. “Let me
introduce you to my sister Lilian, Mr. Buckland. She’s at school at
Richmond, but I’ve brought her out for a day’s holiday.”
“You are living in town now?” he asked.
“Yes, I am staying with some friends. My mother is living down at
Brighton, and I divide my time between them,” said Miss Davison.
Gerard hesitated. He wanted more than ever to know all about her, to
be able to meet her at her home, to renew the acquaintance which had
delighted and impressed him so much. But her words seemed to imply
quite clearly that she had no such wish on her side.
“I--I had heard--the Aldingtons thought”--he stammered at last--“that
you were married.”
She smiled.
“I’m not a marrying girl,” she said.
There was a pause and then he grew bold.
“You’ve taken my advice and found an opening for your talents,” said he.
Miss Davison looked alarmed.
“What do you mean?” she said quickly.
It was an awkward question to answer. He could not tell her that
whereas she had been shabby and ashamed of being seen in her mother’s
modest home a few months ago, now she was resplendent in expensive
clothes, and evidently as far removed as possible from the pinch of
poverty.
“I mean,” he said diplomatically, “that from what I saw of you I am
sure you would not have failed to find some opening for your energies,
and” he dared to add, with a sly glance of admiration, “to judge by
what I see, you have succeeded.”
The blush faded from Miss Davison’s face and gave place to a demure and
flickering smile.
“We have had a little luck at last,” she said. “That’s all. It’s
nothing to do with me.”
At that moment an elderly lady of distinguished appearance, who
appeared to be acting as chaperon to the two girls, came up to them
from the seat in the middle of the room, where she had been doing her
inspection of the pictures--and the people--without fatigue. Miss
Davison had to turn to talk to her, but she did not introduce him. So
he fell back upon the younger sister, who was full of excitement and
happiness over her holiday.
“Don’t you find looking at pictures tiring?” asked he, for want of
something better to say.
“Oh, no. You see this is a great treat for me, to come out with Rachel;
so nothing bores me, as it might anyone who could do this sort of thing
whenever he liked.”
“You are very fond of your sister, I can see.”
The girl’s face beamed with affection as she answered--
“I adore Rachel. She’s so wonderfully clever and energetic, and good to
us. Do you know that she has changed everything for mamma and me, by
her cleverness and her hard work?”
“I’m not at all surprised,” said Gerard heartily. “I told her when
I met her first that I was sure she would find some opening for her
talents. She said she had none, but I knew better.”
“No talents! Yes, isn’t it absurd? That’s what she always says,” cried
Lilian merrily. “A girl who can make eight hundred a year, without any
previous teaching or training, simply by drawing designs.”
“Indeed!” said Gerard, admiring but almost incredulous at the
simplicity of the means.
“Yes,” pursued Lilian confidently. “Of course she has to work very
hard, and she has to go about just where the firm that employs her
wants her to go. But she says she likes it, and certainly they treat
her very well.”
Gerard was puzzled. That any firm should pay a designer eight hundred a
year, and want her to travel about for them seemed strange, he thought.
He had had a vague idea that a designer must go through a thorough
course of training before his talents were of much practical value; and
to learn that a girl who had had no experience of such work could,
within a few months, make such a large income was a surprise to him.
“She must have to work very hard,” he said.
“Yes, but she finds time to go about and enjoy herself too. That is
the wonderful part of it, and nobody could do it but Rachel,” babbled
on the pretty childlike seventeen-year-old sister proudly. “Old Lady
Jennings, whom she stays with, says she never sees her with a pencil in
her hand when she’s at home. But she has a little studio somewhere off
Regent Street--only she won’t tell us where, for fear we should go and
disturb her at her work,” added the girl ingenuously, “and when she has
anything important to do, she just shuts herself up there, and works
away for hours. I do wish I were clever like that!” she added wistfully.
“I’ve no doubt you’re clever too, in some other way,” almost stammered
Gerard, puzzled and confused by the strange account the simple-hearted
schoolgirl had given him.
He was conscious, even as he talked to the pretty child, that her
sister was watching them with anxiety. Was Rachel anxious that Lilian
should not be so frank?
Old Lady Jennings, the distinguished-looking chaperon, seemed to be
anxious to have him introduced to her. But Rachel prevented this, and
contrived, without any appearance of incivility, to dismiss Gerard
within a few moments of the conversation he had had with her sister.
He was disturbed, ruffled, rendered uneasy, and vaguely suspicious of
he knew not what. But the impression made upon him by Miss Davison
the elder, was stronger than ever, and he felt that he could not rest
until he had found out more about her, and fathomed the mystery which
appeared to surround her.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that the younger
sister must be under a misapprehension with regard to the income earned
by her sister. Either it was much smaller than she supposed, and Rachel
pretended that it was large, in order that the younger might not feel
that she was a burden, or else Rachel had some other employment, more
remunerative, to eke out her income.
Was she on the stage? Though Gerard knew little about the theatrical
profession except from the outside, he was vaguely sure that incomes
of eight hundred a year cannot be made there except by actors and
actresses who have some training or experience, or who have made such a
mark for some special reason or other, that their names must be known
to everybody.
That the girl in whom he felt such a strong interest would not stoop
to anything unworthy he felt sure. But that he remembered, with an
uneasiness which he could not stay, that singular treatment of her
friends the Aldingtons, for whom she had professed so much affection,
and yet whom she did not scruple to neglect and even to “cut,” without
any apparent reason.
And why would she not let him be introduced to old Lady Jennings, when
the lady herself had evidently been willing, if not anxious, to know
him? Why did such a young woman choose to wrap her doings and her
whereabouts in a ridiculous mystery, which could not but be prejudicial
both to herself and her young sister?
The whole thing was puzzling, irritating, and Gerard could think of
nothing else.
He would have liked to think of Rachel Davison as he had seen her
first, and to honor her for her valiant efforts to restore to her
mother and sister the luxurious atmosphere of their old home, all by
her own hard work.
Now, try as he would to dispel all doubts from his mind, he could not
but feel that there was a mystery about her which was disquieting. It
was true that this Lady Jennings, with whom she was staying, was a
woman with a high and even conspicuous position in the world. Not very
rich, she was a great connoisseur and a much sought after hostess, and
no girls on the threshold of life could have a better, a shrewder, or a
more trustworthy friend.
But, on the other hand, Rachel had not been candid or truthful in her
statements to him: was it possible that she was equally lacking in
candor to others?
She had told him that her prosperity was due to “luck,” and had
expressly stated that it had “nothing to do with her.”
Now her sister had said frankly that this “luck” was due to her
sister’s talents and hard work.
What did this discrepancy mean?
Gerard worried himself unceasingly about this, for he could not get the
brilliant and beautiful Miss Davison out of his head. Lilian had said
that her sister had a little studio somewhere near Regent Street, where
she occupied herself with these wonderful designs which brought her in
so handsome an income.
Mrs. Davison, she had said, lived at Brighton, and Rachel divided
her time between her mother and Lady Jennings, whose address Gerard
immediately set himself to discover.
It was near Sloane Street, a small house, the position of which
suggested a rental quite out of proportion to its small size.
Gerard took a walk in that direction, and looked wistfully at the
door at which he dared not knock. He felt himself to be growing even
dangerously sentimental about this girl, and told himself he was a fool
to think of a woman who certainly harbored no thought of him.
And yet--there was the rub!--it had seemed to him, that afternoon at
the Academy, that Rachel looked at him with a certain expression which
suggested that, so far from having forgotten him, she retained almost
as vivid a remembrance of him as he did of her. This was not a fancy,
it was a fact, and it completed his subjugation to the tyranny of his
ideal.
He began to haunt the West End, hovering between Sloane Street and
Regent Street until one evening, when there was a grand dinner-party
given, and a great crowd was assembled in one of the Squares in the
expectation of the arrival of royalty, he recognized, with a pang of
surprise and terror which almost made him cry out aloud, the face and
figure of Rachel Davison not far away from him.
She was dressed in a shabby skirt and blouse, and an old, shapeless
black hat, but the disguise was ineffectual for him; he knew her at
once, and was about to approach her, and to address her, when suddenly
he saw her withdraw to the outskirts of the crowd, followed by a
thickset man rather above the middle height. Gerard, hiding himself
with a strange sickness at his heart, among the crowd, nevertheless
kept watch.
And he saw her hand something bright and glistening to the man, and
then disappear absolutely from sight.
Gerard staggered out of the crowd, faint as if he had received a
physical wound.
Was Rachel a thief?