KETTERING HEARS SOMETHING
"I shall never be able to manage it if I live to be a hundred," said
Christine despairingly.
She leaned back in the padded seat of Kettering's big car and looked up
into his face with laughing eyes.
She had been trying to drive; she had driven the car at snail's pace
the length of the drive leading from Upton House, and tried to turn out
of the open carriage gate into the road.
"If you hadn't been here we should have gone into the wall, shouldn't
we?" she demanded.
Kettering laughed.
"I'm very much afraid we should," he said. "But that's nothing. I did
all manner of weird things when I first started to drive. Take the
wheel again and have another try."
But Christine refused.
"I might smash the car, and that would be awful. You'd never forgive
me."
"Should I not!" His grave eyes searched her pretty face. "I don't
think you need be very alarmed about that," he said. "However, if you
insist----" He changed places with her and took the wheel himself.
It was early morning, and fresh and sunny. Christine was flushed and
smiling, for the moment at least there were no shadows in her eyes; she
looked more like the girl who had smiled up from the stalls in the
theatre to where Jimmy Challoner sat alone in his box that night of
their meeting.
Jimmy had never once been mentioned between herself and this man since
that first afternoon. Save for the fact that Kettering called her
"Mrs. Challoner," Christine might have been unmarried.
"Gladys will think we have run away," she told him presently with a
little laugh. "I told her we should be only half an hour."
"Have we been longer?" he asked surprised.
Christine looked at her watch.
"Nearly an hour," she said. "We were muddling about in the drive for
ever so long, you know; and I really think we ought to go back."
"If you really think so----" He turned the car reluctantly. "I
suppose you wouldn't care for a little run after lunch?" he asked
carelessly. "I've got to go over to Heston. I should be delighted to
take you."
"I should love it--if I can bring Gladys."
He did not answer for a moment, then:
"Oh, bring Gladys by all means," he said rather dryly.
"What time?"
"I'll call for you at two--If that will do."
They had reached the house again now; Christine got out of the car and
stood for a moment with one foot on the step looking up at Kettering.
There was a little silence.
"How long have we known each other?" he asked suddenly.
She looked up startled--she made a rapid calculation.
"Nearly three weeks, isn't it?" she said then.
He laughed.
"It seems longer; it seems as if I must have known you all my life."
The words were ordinary enough, but the look in his eyes brought the
swift colour to Christine's cheeks--her eyes fell.
"Is that a compliment?" she asked, trying to speak naturally.
"I hope so; I meant it to be."
Her hand was resting on the open door of the car; for an instant he
laid his own above it; Christine drew hers quickly away.
"Well, we'll be ready at two, then," she said. She turned to the
house. Kettering drove slowly down the drive. He was a very
fine-looking man, Christine thought with sudden wistfulness; he had
been so kind to her--kinder than anyone she had ever known. She was
glad he was going to have Upton House, as it had got to be sold. He
had promised her to look after it, and not have any of the trees in the
garden cut down.
"It shall all be left just as it is now," he told her.
"Perhaps some day you'll marry, and your wife will want it altered,"
she said sadly.
"I shall never get married," he had answered quickly.
She had been glad to hear him say that; he was so nice as a friend,
somehow she did not want anyone to come along and change him.
She went into the house and called to Gladys.
"I thought you would think we were lost perhaps," she said laughingly,
as she thrust her head into the morning-room where Gladys was sitting.
The elder girl looked up; her voice was rather dry when she answered:
"No, I did not think that."
Christine threw her hat aside.
"I can't drive a bit," she said petulantly. "I'm so silly! I nearly
ran into the wall at the gate."
"Did you?"
"Yes. Gladys, we're going over to Heston at two o'clock with Mr.
Kettering."
Gladys looked up.
"We! Who do you mean by 'we'?"
"You and I, of course."
"Oh"--there was a momentary silence, then: "There's a letter for you on
the table," said Gladys.
Christine turned slowly, a little flush of colour rushing to her
cheeks. She glanced apprehensively at the envelope lying face upwards,
then she drew a quick breath, almost of relief it seemed.
She picked the letter up indifferently and broke open the flap. There
was a moment of silence; Gladys glanced up.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Christine was staring out of the window, the letter lay on the floor at
her feet.
"Jimmy's ill," she said listlessly.
"Ill!" Gladys laid down her pen and swung round in the chair. "What's
the matter with him?" she asked rather sceptically.
"I don't know. You can read the letter, it's from Mr.
Sangster--Jimmy's great friend."
She handed the letter over.
Gladys read it through and gave it back.
"Humph!" she said with a little inelegant sniff; she looked at her
friend. "Are you going?" she asked bluntly.
Christine did not answer. She was thinking of Jimmy, deliberately
trying to think of the man whom she had done her best during the last
three weeks to forget. She tried to think of him as he had been that
last dreadful night at the hotel, when he had threatened to strike her,
when he had told her to clear out and leave him; but somehow she could
only recall him as he had looked at Euston that morning when he said
good-bye to her, with the hangdog, shamed look in his eyes, and the
pathetic droop to his shoulders.
And now he was ill! It was kind of Sangster to have written, she told
herself, even while she knew quite well that Jimmy had not asked him
to; it would be the last thing in the world Jimmy would wish.
If he were ill, it was not because he wanted her. She drew her little
figure up stiffly.
"I shan't go unless I hear again that it is serious," she said
stiltedly.
"Not--go!" Gladys's voice sounded somehow blank, there was a curious
expression in her eyes. After a moment she looked away. "Oh, well,
you must please yourself, of course."
Christine turned to the door--she held Sangster's letter in her hand.
"Besides," she said flippantly, "I'm going over to Heston this
afternoon with Mr. Kettering."
She went up to her room and shut the door. She stood staring before
her with blank eyes, her pretty face had fallen again into sadness, her
mouth dropped pathetically.
She opened Sangster's letter and read it through once more. Was Jimmy
really ill, and was Sangster afraid to tell her, she wondered? Or was
this merely Sangster's way of trying to bring them together again?
But Jimmy did not want her; even if he were dying Jimmy would not want
to see her again.
If he had cared he would never have consented to this separation; if he
had cared--but, of course, he did not care!
She began to cry softly; big tears ran down her cheeks, and she brushed
them angrily away.
She had tried to shut him out of her heart. She had tried to forget
him. In a defensive, innocent way she had deliberately encouraged
Kettering. She liked him, and he helped her to forget; it restored her
self-esteem to read the admiration in his kind eyes, it helped to
soothe the hurt she had suffered from Jimmy's hands; and yet, in spite
of it all, he was not Jimmy, and nobody could ever take Jimmy's place.
She kept away from Gladys till lunch time, when at last she appeared,
her eyes were red and swollen, and she held her head defiantly high.
Gladys considerately let her alone. Somehow, in spite of everything,
she quite expected to hear that Christine was off to London by the
afternoon train, but the meal passed almost in silence, and when it was
finished Christine said:
"We'd better get ready; Mr. Kettering will be there at two."
Gladys turned away.
"I'd rather not go, if you don't mind," she said uncomfortably.
"Not--go!"
"No--I--I don't care about motoring. I--I've got a headache too."
Christine stared at her, then she laughed defiantly.
"Oh, very well; please yourself."
She went upstairs to dress; she took great pains to make herself look
pretty. When Kettering arrived she noticed that his eyes went past her
gloomily as if looking for someone else.
"Gladys is not coming," she said.
His face brightened.
"Not coming! Ought I to be sorry, I wonder?"
She laughed.
"That's rude."
"I'm sorry." He tucked the rug round her, and they started away down
the drive. "You don't want the wheel, I suppose?" he asked whimsically.
Christine shook her head.
"Have you--you been crying?" Kettering asked abruptly.
Christine flushed scarlet.
"Whatever makes you ask me that?"
"Your eyes are red," he told her gently.
She looked up at him with resentment, and suddenly the tears came
again. Kettering bit his lip hard. He did not speak for some time.
"I've got a headache," Christine said at last with an effort. "I--oh,
I know it's silly. Don't laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing." His voice dragged a little; he kept his eyes
steadily before him.
"I thought perhaps something had happened--that you had had bad news,"
he said presently. "If--if there is anything I can do to help you, you
know--you know I----"
"There isn't anything the matter," she interrupted with a rush. She
was terrified lest he should guess that her tears were because of
Jimmy; she had a horror nowadays that everyone would know that she
cared for a man who cared nothing for her; she brushed the tears away
determinedly; she set herself to talk and smile.
They had tea at Heston, in the little square parlour of a country inn
where the floor was only polished boards, and where long wooden
trestles ran on two sides of the room.
"It looks rather thick," Kettering said ruefully, standing looking down
at the plate of bread and butter. "I hope you don't mind; this is the
best place in the village."
Christine laughed.
"It's like what we used to have at school, and I'm hungry."
She looked up at him with dancing eyes; she had quite forgotten her
sorrow of the morning. Somehow this man's presence always cheered her
and took her out of herself. She poured tea for him, and laughed and
chatted away merrily.
Afterwards they sat over the fire and talked.
Christine said she could see faces in the red coals; she painted them
out to Kettering.
He had to stoop forward to see what she indicated; for a moment their
heads were very close together; it was Christine who drew back sharply.
"Oughtn't we to be going home?" she asked with sudden nervousness.
She rose to her feet and went over to the window; the sunshine had
gone, and the country road was grey and shadowy. Kettering's big car
stood at the kerb. After a moment he followed her to the window; he
was a little pale, his eyes seemed to avoid hers.
"I am quite ready when you are," he said.
She was fastening her veil over her hat; her fingers shook a little as
she tied the bow.
Kettering had gone to pay for the tea; she stood looking after him with
dawning apprehension in her eyes.
He was a fine enough man; there was something about him that gave one
such a feeling of safety--of security. She could not imagine that he
would ever deliberately set himself to hurt a woman, as--as Jimmy had.
She went out to the car and stood waiting for him.
"All that tea for one and threepence!" he said, laughing, when he
joined her. "Wonderful, isn't it?"
She laughed too. She got in beside him and tucked the rug round her
warmly.
"How long will it take to get home?" she asked. She seemed all at once
conscious of the growing dusk, conscious, too, of anxiety to get back
to Gladys. She was a little afraid of this man, though she would not
admit it even to herself.
"We ought to be home in an hour," he said. He started the engine.
The car ran smoothly for a mile or two. Christine began to feel
sleepy. Kettering did not talk much, and the fresh evening air on her
face was soothing and pleasant. She closed her eyes.
Presently when Kettering spoke to her he got no answer; he turned a
little in his seat and looked down at her, but her head was drooping
forward and he could not see her face.
"Christine." He spoke her name sharply, then suddenly he smiled; she
was asleep.
He moved so that her head rested against his arm; he slowed the car
down a little.
Kettering was not a young man, his fortieth birthday had been several
years a thing of the past, but all his life afterwards he looked back
on that drive home to Upton House as the happiest hour he had ever
known, with Christine's little head resting on his arm and the grey
twilight all about them. When they were half a mile from home he
roused her gently. She sat up with a start, rubbing sleepy eyes.
"Oh! where are we?" He laid his hand on hers for a moment.
"You've been asleep. We're nearly home."
He turned in at the drive of Upton House. He let her get out of the
car unassisted.
Gladys was at the door; her eyes were anxious.
"I thought you must have had an accident," she said. She caught
Christine's hand. "You're fearfully late."
"We had tea at Heston," Christine said. She ran into the house.
Kettering looked at the elder girl.
"You would not come," he said. "Don't you care for motoring?"
"No." She came down the steps and stood beside him. "Mr. Kettering,
may I say something?"
He looked faintly surprised.
"May you! Why, of course!"
"You will be angry--you will be very angry, I am afraid," she said.
"But--but I can't help it."
"Angry! What do you mean?"
There was a moment's silence, then:
"Well," said Kettering rather curtly.
She flushed, but her eyes did not fall.
"Mr. Kettering, if you are a gentleman, and I know you are, you will
never come here again," she said urgently.
A little wave of crimson surged under Kettering's brown skin, but his
eyes did not fall; there was a short silence, then he laughed--rather
mirthlessly.
"And if I am _not_ the gentleman you so very kindly seem to believe
me," he said constrainedly.
Gladys Leighton came a little closer to him; she laid her hand on his
arm.
"You don't mean that; you're only saying it because--because----" She
broke off with an impatient gesture. "Oh!" she said exasperatedly,
"what is the use of loving a person if you do not want them to be
happy--if you cannot sacrifice yourself a little for them."
Kettering looked at her curiously. He had never taken much notice of
her before; he had thought her a very ordinary type; he was struck by
the sudden energy and passion in her voice.
"She is not happy now, at all events," he said grimly.
She turned away and fidgeted with the wheel of the car.
"She could not very well be more unhappy than she is now," he said
again bitterly.
"She would be more unhappy if she knew she had done something to be
ashamed of--something she had got to hide."
He raised his eyes.
"Are you holding a brief for Challoner?" he asked.
She frowned a little.
"You know I am not; I never thought he was good enough for her. Even
years ago as a boy he was utterly selfish; but--but Christine loved him
then; she thought there was nobody in all the world like him; she
adored him."
He winced. "And now?" he asked shortly.
She did not answer for a moment; she stood looking away from him.
"There was a letter this morning," she said tonelessly. "Jimmy is ill,
and they asked her to go to him."
"Well!"
"She would not go. She told me she was going to Heston with you
instead."
The silence fell again. Kettering's eyes were shining; there was a
sort of shamed triumph about his big person.
Gladys turned to him impatiently.
"Are you looking glad? Oh, I think I should kill you if I saw you
looking glad," she said quickly. "I only told you that so that you
might see how much she is under your influence already; so that you can
save her from herself. . . . She's so little and weak--and now that
she is unhappy, it's just the time when she might do something she
would be sorry for all her life--when she might----"
"What are you two talking about?" Christine demanded from the doorway.
She came down the steps and stood between them; she looked at
Kettering. "I thought you had gone," she said, surprised.
"No; I--Miss Leighton and I have been discussing the higher ethics," he
said dryly. He held his hand to Gladys. "Well, good-bye," he said;
there was a little emphasis on the last word.
She just touched his fingers.
"Good-bye." She put her arm round Christine; there was something
defensive in her whole attitude.
Kettering got into the car; he did not look at Christine again. He
started the engine; presently he was driving slowly away.
"Have you two been quarreling?" Christine asked. There was a touch of
vexation in her voice; her eyes were straining through the darkness
towards the gate.
Gladys laughed.
"Quarrelling! Why ever should I quarrel with Mr. Kettering? I've
hardly spoken half a dozen words to him in all my life."
"You seemed to have a great deal to say to him, all the same,"
Christine protested, rather shortly.
They went back to the house together.
It was during dinner that night that Gladys deliberately led the
conversation round to Jimmy again.
They had nearly finished the unpretentious little meal; it had passed
almost silently. Christine looked pale and preoccupied. Gladys was
worried and anxious.
A dozen times during the past few days she had tried to decide whether
she ought to write to Jimmy or not. Her sharp eyes had seen from the
very first the way things were going with regard to Kettering, and she
was afraid of the responsibility. If anything happened--if Christine
chose to doubly wreck her life--afterwards they might all blame her;
she knew that.
She was fond of Christine, too. And though she had never approved of
Jimmy, she would have done a great deal to see them happy together.
It was for that reason that she now spoke of him.
"When are you going to London, Chris?"
Christine looked up; she flushed.
"Going to London! I am not going. . . . I never want to go there any
more."
Gladys made no comment; she had heard the little quiver in the younger
girl's voice.
Presently:
"I suppose you think I ought to go to Jimmy," Christine broke out
vehemently. "I suppose you are hinting that it is my duty to go. You
don't know what you are talking about; you don't understand that he
cares nothing about me--that he would be glad if I were dead and out of
the way. He only wants his freedom; he never really wished to marry
me."
"It isn't as bad as that. I am sure he----"
"You don't know anything about him. You don't know what I went through
during those hateful weeks before--before I came here. I don't care if
I never see him again; he has never troubled about me. It's my turn
now; I am going to show him that he isn't the only man in the world."
Gladys had never heard Christine talk like this before; she was
frightened at the recklessness of her voice. She broke in quickly:
"I won't listen if you're going to say such things. Jimmy is your
husband, and you loved him once, no matter what you may do now. You
loved him very dearly once."
Christine laughed.
"I've got over that. He wasn't worth breaking my heart about. I was
just a poor little fool in those days, who didn't know that a man never
cares for a woman if he is too sure of her. Oh, if I could only have
my time over again, I'd treat him so differently--I'd never let him how
how much I cared."
Her voice had momentarily fallen back into its old wistfulness. There
were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
"Don't talk about him; I don't want to talk about him."
But Gladys persisted.
"It isn't too late; you can have the time all over again by starting
afresh, and trying to wipe out the past. You're so young. Why, Jimmy
is only a boy; you've got all your lives before you." She got up and
went round to where Christine was sitting. She put an arm about her
shoulders. "Why don't you forgive him, and start again? Give him
another chance, dear, and have a second honeymoon."
Christine pushed her away; she started up with burning cheeks.
"You don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone--oh, do
leave me alone." She ran from the room.
She lay awake half the night thinking of what Gladys had said. She
tried to harden her heart against Jimmy. She tried to remember only
that he had married her out of pique; that he cared nothing for
her--that he did not really want her. As a sort of desperate defence
she deliberately thought of Kettering; he liked her, she knew. She was
not too much of a child to understand what that look in his eyes had
meant, that sudden pressure of his hand on hers.
And she liked him, too. She told herself defiantly that she liked him
very much; that she would rather have been with him over at Heston that
afternoon than up in town with Jimmy. Kettering at least sought and
enjoyed her society, but Jimmy----
She clenched her hands to keep back the blinding tears that crowded to
her eyes. What was she crying for? There was nothing to cry for; she
was happy--quite happy; she was away from Jimmy--away from the man
whose presence had only tortured her during those last few days; she
was at home--at Upton House, and Kettering was there whenever she
wanted him. She hoped he would come in the morning again; that he
would come quite early. After breakfast she wandered about the house
restlessly, listening for the sound of his car in the drive outside;
but the morning dragged away and he did not come.
Christine ate no lunch; her head ached, she said pettishly when Gladys
questioned her. No, she did not want to go out; there was nowhere to
go.
And all the time her eyes kept turning to the window again and again
restlessly.
Gladys did not know what to do; she was hoping and praying in her heart
that Kettering would do as she had asked him, and stay away. What was
the good of him coming again? What was the good of him making himself
indispensable to Christine? The day passed wretchedly. Once she found
Christine huddled up on the sofa crying; she was so miserable, she
sobbed; nobody cared for her; she was so lonely, and she wanted her
mother.
Gladys did all she could to comfort her, but all the time she was
painfully conscious of the fact that had Kettering walked into the room
just then there would have been no more tears.
Sometimes she thought that it only served Jimmy Challoner right;
sometimes she told herself that this was his punishment--that Fate was
fighting him with his own weapons, paying him back in his own coin; but
she knew such thoughts were mere foolishness.
He and Christine were married, no matter how strongly they might resent
it. The only thing left to them was to make the best they could of
life.
She sat with Christine that night till the girl was asleep. She was
not very much Christine's senior in years, but she felt somehow old and
careworn as she sat there in the silent room and listened to the girl's
soft breathing.
She got up and went over to stand beside her.
So young, such a child, it seemed impossible that she was already a
wife, this girl lying there with her soft hair falling all about her.
Gladys sighed and walked over to the window. It must be a great thing
to be loved, she thought rather sadly; nobody had ever loved her; no
man had ever looked at her as Kettering looked at little
Christine. . . . She opened the window and looked out into the
darkness.
It was a mild, damp night. Grey mist veiled the garden and shut out
the stars; everything was very silent.
If only Christine's mother had been here to take the responsibility of
it all, she thought longingly; she had so little influence with
Christine herself. She closed the window and went back to the bedside.
Christine was moving restlessly. As Gladys looked down at her she
began to laugh in her sleep--a little chuckle of unaffected joy.
Gladys smiled, too, involuntarily. She was happy in her dreams, at any
rate, she thought with a sense of relief.
And then suddenly Christine woke with a start. She sat up in bed,
throwing out her arms.
"Jimmy----" But it was a cry of terror, not of joy.
"Jimmy--Jimmy--don't hurt me. . . . oh!"
She was sobbing now--wild, pitiful sobs.
Gladys put her arms round her; she held her tightly.
"It's all right, dear. I'm here--nobody shall hurt you." She stroked
her hair and soothed and kissed her; she held her fast till the sobbing
ceased. Then:
"I've been dreaming," said Christine tremblingly. "I thought"--she
shivered a little--"I thought--thought someone was going to hurt me."
"Nobody can hurt you while I am here; dreams are nothing--nobody
believes in dreams."
Christine did not answer. She had never told Gladys of that one moment
when Jimmy had tried to strike her--when beside himself with passionate
rage and misery he had lifted his hand to strike her.
She fell asleep again, holding her friend's hand.