THE UNEXPECTED
Four days passed away, and still the Great Horatio had not arrived in
London. He had sent a couple of telegrams from Marseilles explaining
that a chill had delayed him.
"Sly old dog," Jimmy growled to Sangster. "He means that he's having a
thundering good time where he is."
Sangster laughed.
"Marseilles isn't much of a place. Perhaps he really is ill."
Jimmy grunted something unintelligible.
"I doubt it," he added. "And the devil of it is that Christine doesn't
believe me. She doesn't think the old idiot's coming home at all; she
doesn't believe anything I tell her--now."
"Nonsense!" But Sangster's eyes looked anxious. He had seen a great
deal during the last four days, and for the first time there was a tiny
doubt in his mind. Had Christine really lost her love for Jimmy? He
was obliged to admit that it seemed as if she had. She never spoke to
him if she could help it, and he knew that Jimmy was as conscious of
the change as he, knew that Jimmy was worrying himself to a shadow.
"Your brother will turn up when you're least expecting him," he said in
his most matter-of-fact voice. "You'll see if he doesn't--and then
everything will come right."
Jimmy grunted. He fidgeted round the room and came to anchorage in
front of the window. He stood staring out into the not very cheerful
street.
Sangster knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose.
"Well, we may as well be going," he said. "I thought you told me we
were to lunch with your wife."
"So I did. She's gone shopping this morning--didn't want me. I said
we'd meet her at the Savoy at one. I want to call in at my rooms
first, if you don't mind." Jimmy spoke listlessly. He was a great
deal with Sangster nowadays. Christine so often made excuses for him
not to be with her, and he had got into that state when he could not
tolerate his own company. He dreaded being left to his thoughts; he
would not be alone for a minute if he could help it.
They left Sangster's rooms and went to Jimmy's.
"I asked Christine to come here the other day," Jimmy said with a short
laugh as he fitted his key in the door. "She wouldn't, of course."
"Why not?"
"Because Cynthia had been here." He looked away from his friend's
eyes. "I don't blame her. She'll never understand the difference.
That--that other---- I wonder how it ever came about at all now, when
I look back."
Sangster followed him silently.
"I shall give the d----d place up," Jimmy said sullenly. "I can't
afford to keep it on really; and if she won't come here----"
Sangster made no comment. Jimmy put his hat down on the table and went
over to the sideboard for whisky and glasses.
"Don't be a fool, Jimmy," said Sangster.
He shrugged his shoulders when Jimmy told him to mind his own business.
He turned away.
"Here's a telegram," he said suddenly.
Jimmy turned.
"For me?"
"Yes--your brother I expect."
Jimmy snatched up the yellow envelope and tore it open. He read the
message through:
"Coming to London to-night. Meet me Waterloo eight-thirty."
He laughed mirthlessly.
"The Great Horatio?" Sangster asked.
"Yes."
Jimmy had forgotten the whisky. He took up his hat.
"Come on; I must tell Christine." He made for the door.
"You'd better take the wire to show her," said Sangster. They went out
into the street together.
"It's too early to go to the Savoy," said Jimmy. He was walking very
fast now. There was a sort of eagerness in his face; perhaps he hoped
that his brother's presence, as Sangster had said, would make all the
difference. "We'll hop along to the hotel and fetch her."
He walked Sangster off his feet. He pushed open the swing door of the
hotel with an impatient hand.
"Mrs. Challoner--my wife--is she in?"
The hall porter looked at Jimmy curiously. He thought he and Christine
were the strangest married couple he had ever come across. There was a
little twinkle in his solemn eyes as he answered:
"Mrs. Challoner went very early, sir. She asked me to telephone to you
at the Savoy at one o'clock and say she was sorry she would not be able
to meet you----"
"Not be able to meet me?" Jimmy's voice and face were blank.
"That is what Mrs. Challoner said, sir. She went out with a
gentleman,--a Mr. Kettering, she told me to say, sir."
Sangster turned sharply away. For the first time for many weeks he was
utterly and profoundly sorry for Jimmy Challoner, as he stood staring
at the hall porter with blank eyes. The eager flush had faded from his
face; he looked, all at once, ill and old; he pulled himself together
with an effort.
"Oh! All right--thanks--thanks very much."
His voice sounded dazed. He turned and went down the steps to the
street; but when he reached the pavement he stood still again, as if he
hardly knew what he was doing. When Sangster touched his arm he
started violently.
"What is it? Oh, yes--I'm coming." He began to walk on at such a rate
that Sangster could hardly keep pace with him. He expostulated
good-humouredly:
"What's the hurry, old chap? I'm getting old, remember."
Jimmy slackened speed then. He looked at his friend with burning eyes.
"I'll break every bone in that devil's carcass," he said furiously.
"I'll teach him to come dangling after my wife. I ought to have known
that was his little game. No wonder she won't go anywhere with me.
It's Kettering--damn his impertinence! I suppose he's been setting her
against me. He and Horace always thought I was a rotter and an
outsider. I'll spoil his beauty for him; I'll----" His voice had
risen excitedly. A man passing turned to stare curiously.
Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy's arm.
"Don't be so hasty, old chap. There's no harm in your wife going out
to lunch with Kettering if she wants to. Give her the benefit of the
doubt for the present, at least."
"She's chucked me for him. She promised to meet me. She thinks more
of him than she does of me, or she'd never have gone." There was a
sort of enraged agony in Jimmy's voice, a fierce colour burned in his
pale face.
Sangster shrugged his shoulders. It was rather amusing to him that
Jimmy should be playing the jealous husband--Jimmy, whose own life had
been so singularly selfish and full of little episodes which no doubt
he would prefer to be buried and forgotten.
Jimmy turned on him:
"You're pleased, of course. You're chuckling up your sleeve. You
think it serves me right--and I dare say it does; but I can't bear it,
I tell you--I won't--I won't."
The words were boyish enough, but there was something of real tragedy
in his young voice, something that forced the realisation home to
Sangster that perhaps it was not merely dog-in-the-manger jealousy that
was goading him now, but genuine pain. He looked at him quickly and
away again. Jimmy's face was twitching. If he had been a woman one
would have said that he was on the verge of an hysterical outburst.
Sangster rose to the occasion.
"Let's go and get a drink," he said prosaically. "I'm as dry as dust
and we haven't had any lunch."
Jimmy said he wasn't hungry, that he couldn't eat a morsel of anything
if it were to save his life. He broke out again into a fresh torrent
of abuse of Kettering. He cursed him up hill and down dale. Even when
they were in the restaurant to which Sangster insisted on going he
could not stop Jimmy's flow of expletives. One or two people lunching
near looked at them in amazement. In desperation Sangster ordered a
couple of brandies; he forced Jimmy to drink one. Presently he quieted
a little. He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his
hands. With the passing of his passionate rage, depression seemed to
have gripped him. He was sullen and morose, he would not answer when
Sangster spoke to him; when they left the restaurant he insisted on
going back to Christine's hotel.
He questioned the porter closely. Where had she gone? Had they driven
away together or walked?
They had had a taxi, the man told him. He began to look rather
alarmed; there was something in Jimmy's white face and burning eyes
that meant mischief, he thought. He told the "Boots" afterwards: "We
shall hear more of this--you mark _my_ words."
"A taxi--yes. . . . Go on." Jimmy moistened his dry lips. "You--you
didn't hear where--what directions? . . ."
"Yes, sir. The gentleman told me to say Euston, told me to tell the
driver to go to Euston, I mean, sir----" the man explained in
confusion. He was red in the face now and embarrassed.
"Euston," said Jimmy and Sangster together. They looked at one
another, Jimmy with a sort of dread in his eyes, Sangster with anxiety.
"Yes, sir. Euston it was, I'm sure. And the gentleman told me to tell
the driver to go as fast as he could."
There was a little silence. Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy's
arm.
"Thanks--thanks very much," he said. He led Jimmy away.
He called a taxi and told the man to drive to Jimmy's rooms. He made
no attempt to speak, did not know what to say. Jimmy was leaning back
with closed eyes.
Presently:
"Do you think she's gone?" he asked huskily.
Sangster made a hurried gesture of denial:
"No, no."
Jimmy laughed mirthlessly.
"She has," he said. "I know she has. Serves me damned well right.
It's all I deserve." There was a little pause. "Well," he said,
"she's more than got her own back, if it's any consolation to her to
know it."
He felt as if there were a knife being turned in his heart. His whole
soul revolted against this enforced pain. He had never suffered like
this in all his life before. Even that night at the theatre, when
Cynthia Farrow had given him his _congé_, he had not suffered as now;
then, it had been more damage to his pride than his heart; but this--he
loved Christine--he knew now that he loved little Christine as he had
never loved any other woman, as he never would love anyone again.
He cursed himself for a blind fool. It goaded him to madness to think
of the happiness that had been his for the taking, and which he had let
fall to the ground. He clenched his teeth in impotent rage. When they
reached his rooms he threw his hat and coat aside, and began pacing up
and down as if he could not keep still for a moment. Life was
insufferable, intolerable; he could not imagine how he was going to get
through all the stretch of years lying in wait for him. He had
forgotten that the Great Horatio was coming home that night; the Great
Horatio had suddenly faded out of the picture; it was no longer a thing
of importance if his allowance were cut down, or stopped once and for
all. All he wanted was Christine--Christine. He would have given his
soul for her at that moment, for just one glimpse of the old trust and
love in her brown eyes, for just a sight of the happy smile with which
she had greeted him when they were first engaged. They had all been
his once, and now he had lost her forever.
Another man had taken and prized the treasure he had blindly thrown
away. Jimmy groaned as he paced up and down, up and down.
Sangster was pretending to read. He turned the pages of a magazine,
but he saw nothing of what was written there. In his own way he was as
unhappy as Jimmy, in his own way he was suffering tortures of doubt and
apprehension.
He did not know Kettering; had only seen him once at Upton House; but
he fully realised that the man had a strong personality, and one very
likely to hold and keep such a nature as Christine's.
But he could not bear to think of the shipwreck this meant for them
all. He could not believe that her love for Jimmy had died so
completely; she had loved him so dearly.
Jimmy came over to where he sat:
"Go and ring up again, there's a dear chap," he said. His voice was
hoarse. "Ring up the hotel for me, will you? She may have come
back. . . . Oh, I hope to God she has," he added brokenly.
Sangster rose at once. He held out his hand.
"I'm so sorry, Jimmy. I'd give anything--anything----" he stopped.
"But it's all right, you see," he added cheerily, struck by the despair
in his friend's face. "She'll be back there by now. We're both
getting scared about nothing. . . . I'll ring up."
He walked over to the desk where Jimmy's 'phone stood. There was a
moment of suspense as he rang and gave the number.
Jimmy had begun his restless pacing once more. His hands were deep
thrust in his trousers pockets, his head bent. His heart seemed to be
hammering in his throat as he tried not to listen to what Sangster was
saying--tried not to hear.
"Yes. . . . Challoner--Mrs. Challoner. I only wondered if she had
returned. . . . Not yet--oh. . . . Yes. . . . A wire. . . .
Yes. . . ."
There was a little silence; a tragic silence it seemed to Jimmy. He
was standing still now. He felt as if his limbs had lost all power of
movement. His eyes were fixed on Sangster's averted face. After a
moment Sangster hung up the receiver.
He did not turn at once; when, at last, he moved, it was very slowly.
He went across to Jimmy and laid a hand on his arm. "She's not there,
old man; but . . . but there's a wire from her--she wired to the
manager. . . ." He paused. He looked away from the agony in Jimmy's
eyes. He tried twice to find his voice before he could go on, then:
"She--she's not coming back to-night," he said. "The--the wire was
sent from--from Oxford . . ."
And now the silence was like the silence of death. Sangster held his
breath. He could feel the sudden rigidness of Jimmy Challoner's arm
beneath his hand.
Then Jimmy turned away and dropped into a chair by the table. He fell
forward with his face hidden in his outstretched arms.
"Oh, my God!" he said in a hoarse whisper.
It was so useless to try and offer any consolation. Sangster stood
looking at him with a suspicious moisture in his honest eyes.
Christine--little Christine! His heart felt as if it were breaking as
he thought of her--of her love for Jimmy--of the first days of their
engagement. And now it was in vain that he tried to remember that
Jimmy was to blame for it all. He tried to harden his heart against
him; but, somehow, he could not. He went over to where he sat and laid
a kind hand on his shoulder.
"Don't give up yet, boy." At that moment he felt years older than his
friend. "There may be some mistake. Don't let's give up till we're
sure--quite sure----"
Jimmy raised his face. His lips were grey and pinched.
"It's no use," he said hopelessly. "No use. . . . Somehow I know
it. . . . Oh, my God! If I could only have it over again--just a
day. . . ." The anguish in his voice would have wrung a harder heart
than Sangster's. For a moment there was unbroken silence in the room.
Then Jimmy struggled to his feet.
"I must go after her. She won't come back, I know. But at least I can
try. . . . It may not be too late---- Kettering--damn him! . . ." He
broke off. He stood for a moment swaying to and fro.
Sangster caught his arm.
"You're not fit to go. Let me. . . . I'll do all I can. . . I give
you my word of honour that I'll move heaven and earth to find her. And
we may be mistaken. We may. . . ." He broke off. Someone had knocked
softly on the door. For a moment neither of them answered, then the
handle was softly turned, and Christine stood there on the
threshold. . . .
Sangster caught his breath hard in his throat. He looked at her, and
he had to hold himself back with an iron hand to keep from rushing to
her, from falling at her feet in abasement for the very real doubt and
dread that he had cherished against her.
She looked so young--such a child, and her brown eyes were so sweet and
shy as she looked at Jimmy--never at him. He realised it with a little
stabbing pain that it was not once at him that she looked, but past
him, to where Jimmy stood like a man turned to stone.
Then: "Christine," said Jimmy Challoner with a great cry.
He put out his hand and touched her, almost as if he doubted that she
was real. His breath was coming fast; he was ashen pale.
"Christine," he said again in a whisper.
Sangster moved past him. He did not look at Christine any more. He
walked to the door and opened it. He hesitated a moment, wondering if
either of them would see him going, be conscious of his presence. But
he might not have been there for all they knew. He went out slowly and
shut the door behind him.
It was the shutting of the door that broke the spell, that roused Jimmy
from the lethargy into which he had fallen. He tried to laugh.
"I'm sorry. I--I didn't expect you." The words sounded foolish to
himself. He tried to cover them. "Won't you sit down? I'm--I'm
glad. . . ." A wave of crimson surged to his face. "Oh, my God! I am
glad to see you," he said hoarsely.
He groped backwards for his chair and fell into it.
A most humiliating weakness came over him. He hid his face in his
hands.
Christine stood looking at him with troubled eyes; then she put out her
hand and touched him timidly:
"Jimmy!"
He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. He kissed it again and
again--the little fingers, the soft palm, the slender wrist.
"I thought I should never see you again. I couldn't have borne
it. . . . Christine--oh my dear, forgive me, forgive me. I'm so
wretched, so utterly, utterly miserable. . . ."
The appeal was so boyish--so like the old selfish Jimmy whom Christine
had loved and spoilt in the days when they were both children. It
almost seemed as if the years were rolled away again and they were down
at Upton House, making up a childish quarrel--Jimmy asking for pardon,
she only too anxious to kiss and be friends.
Tears swam into her eyes and her lips trembled; but she did not move.
"I want to tell you something," she said slowly.
He looked up, his eyes full of a great dread.
"Not that you're going away--I can't bear it. You'll drive me
mad--Christine--little Christine." He was on his knees beside her now,
his arms round her waist, his face buried in the soft folds of her
dress. "Forgive me, Christine--forgive me. I love you so, and I've
been punished enough. I thought you'd gone away with that devil--that
brute Kettering. I've been half mad!" He flung back his head and
looked at her. She was very flushed. Her eyes could not meet his.
"That's--that's just what I want to tell you," she said in a whisper.
Jimmy's arms fell from about her. He rose to his feet slowly; he tried
to speak, but no words would come. Then, quite suddenly, he broke down
into sobbing.
He was very much of a boy still, was Jimmy Challoner. Perhaps he would
never grow up into a man as Kettering and Sangster understood the word;
but his very boyishness was what Christine had first loved in him.
Perhaps he could have chosen no surer or swifter way to her forgiveness
than this. . . .
In a moment her arms were round his neck. She tried to draw his head
down to her shoulder. Her sweet face was all concern and motherly
tenderness as she kissed him and kissed him.
"Don't, Jimmy--don't! Oh, I do love you--I do love you."
She began to cry too, and they kissed and clung together like children
who have quarrelled and are sorry.
Jimmy drew her into his arms, and they sat clasping one another in the
big arm-chair. It was a bit of a squeeze, but neither of them minded.
His arms were round her now, her head on his shoulder. He kissed her
every minute. He said that he had all the byegone years of both their
lives to make up for. He asked her a hundred times if she really loved
him; if she had forgiven him; and if she loved him as much as she had
done a month ago--two months ago; if she loved him as much as when they
were children; and if she would love him all his life and hers.
"All my life and yours," she told him with trembling lips.
He had kissed the colour back to her cheeks by this time. She looked
more like the girl he had seen that fateful night in the stalls at the
theatre. He kissed her eyes because he said they were so beautiful.
He kissed her hair.
Presently she drew a little away from him.
"But I want to talk to you," she said. She would not look at him. She
sat nervously twisting his watch-chain.
"Yes," said Jimmy. He lifted her hand and held it against his lips all
the time she spoke.
"It's about--about Mr. Kettering," she said in a whisper.
Jimmy swore--a sign that he was feeling much better.
"I don't want to hear his confounded name."
"Oh, but you must--Jimmy. I--I--he----"
"He's been making love to you----"
No answer. Jimmy took her face in his hands, searching its flushed
sweetness with jealous eyes.
"Has he?" he demanded savagely.
"N-no . . . but . . . oh, Jimmy, don't look like that. He only came up
this morning because--because Gladys is ill. He thought I ought to
know and--and--I thought I would go down and see her. But in the
train----" she faltered.
"Yes . . ." said Jimmy from between his teeth.
Christine raised her brown eyes.
"He said--he said----" Suddenly she fell forward, hiding her face
against his coat. "Oh, it doesn't matter, dear; it doesn't matter,
because it was then that I knew it was only you I wanted--only you I
loved. I knew that I couldn't bear any other man to say that he loved
me--that it was you--only you."
"Oh, my sweet!" said Jimmy huskily. He turned her face and kissed her
lips. "I don't deserve it; but--oh, Christine, do believe that there's
never been anyone like you in my life; that I've never cared for anyone
as I do for you--all that--that other----"
"I know--I know," she was thinking remorsefully of the days when
Kettering had seemed to come before Jimmy in her heart; of the days
when she had been unhappy because he stayed away. And now there was a
deep thankfulness in her heart that he himself had brought things to a
climax. She had been so pleased to see him when he called at the hotel
that morning. She had never dreamed that sheer longing had driven him
to London to see her, or that he had made Gladys the excuse. She had
readily agreed to a run down to Upton House to see Gladys. She had
started off with him quite happily and unsuspectingly. And then--even
now it sent a little shiver of dread through her to think of the way he
had spoken--the way he had pleaded with her--looked at her.
He had held her hands, kissed them, he had tried to kiss her, and it
had been the touch of his lips that had melted the numbness of her
heart and told her that she loved Jimmy; that in spite of everything
that had happened, everything he had done, he was the one and only man
who would ever count in her life. Passionate revulsion had driven her
back to London. She had parted with Kettering then and there. She had
told him that she never wished to see him again. She had felt as if
she could never be happy till she was back with Jimmy, till she had
made it up with him, till they had kissed and forgiven one another.
She told him all this now simply enough. The little Christine of
happier days had come back from the land of shadowy memories to which
she had retreated as she sat on Jimmy's knee and kissed him between
their little broken sentences and asked him to forgive her.
"I've never, never loved anyone but you, Jimmy," she said earnestly.
"I've never really loved anyone but you."
And Jimmy said, "Thank God!"
He looked at her with passionate thankfulness and love. He told her
all that he had suffered since he went to the hotel and found she had
gone. He said that she had punished him even more than she could ever
have hoped.
"And that wire---- There was a wire to say that you were not coming
back," he said with sudden bitter memory. She nodded.
"I sent it from Oxford. We had to change there. I meant to stay with
Gladys. Poor Gladys!" she added with a little soft laugh of happiness.
"She can do without you--I can't," he said quickly.
"Really and truly?" she asked wistfully.
Jimmy drew her again into his arms. He held her soft cheek to his own.
"I've never really wanted anything or anyone badly in all my life until
now," he said. "Now you're here, in my arms, and I've got the whole
world."
They sat silent for a little.
"Happy?" asked Jimmy in a whisper.
Christine nodded.
"Quite--quite happy," she told him.
Presently:
"Jimmy, you won't--you won't be horrid to--to Mr. Kettering, will you?
He was kind to me--he was very kind to me when--when I was so unhappy."
"Were you very unhappy, my sweet?"
"Dreadfully."
"I'm sorry, darling--so sorry. I can't tell you."
Christine kissed him.
"You won't ever be unkind again, Jimmy?"
"Never--never! Do you believe me?"
She looked into his eyes.
"Yes."
"And you do love me?"
Christine made a little grimace.
"I'm tired of answering that question."
"I shall never be tired of asking it," he said. "And about Kettering?
We shan't ever need to see him again, shall we? So there'll be no
chance for me to tell him that I should like to punch his beastly head."
Christine laughed happily, then she grew serious all at once.
"Jimmy, do you know that I somehow think he will marry Gladys----"
"_What_!" said Jimmy in amazement.
She nodded seriously.
"I believe Gladys likes him. I don't know, but I do believe she does.
And she'd make him a splendid wife."
Jimmy screwed up his nose.
"Don't let's talk about her," he said. "I'd much rather talk about my
own wife----"
Christine flushed.
"Do you think I shall make a--_nice_ wife, Jimmy?" she asked in a
whisper.
Jimmy caught her to his heart.
"Do I? Darling--I can't--somehow I can't answer that question. I'm
not half good enough for you. I don't deserve that you----" he began
brokenly.
She laid her hand on his lips.
"You're not to say rude things about my husband," she told him with
pretended severity.
He kissed the hand that covered his mouth.
"And so when the Great Horatio comes----" said Christine. Jimmy gave a
stifled exclamation; he dragged his watch from his pocket.
"By Jove!" he said.
"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.
He explained:
"I had a wire from the old chap. We were to meet him at Waterloo this
evening at eight-thirty; it's nearly eight now."
Christine climbed down from his knee with a sudden show of dignity.
"We must go at once--of course we must." She came back for a moment to
his arms. "Oh, Jimmy, aren't you _glad_ that we're really--_really_
all right, that we haven't got to pretend now the Great Horatio is
home?"
"I can never tell you how glad," said Jimmy humbly.
They kissed, and Christine danced over to the looking-glass to put her
hat straight.
Jimmy watched her with adoring eyes. Suddenly:
"I shall tell him that we can't stay after to-night," he said
decidedly. "I shall tell him that he can't possibly expect it."
Christine looked round.
"Tell whom--your brother? What do you mean--that he can't expect it?"
Jimmy put an arm round her.
"I shall tell him--don't you know what I shall tell him?" he said
fondly. He bent his head suddenly to hers. "I'll tell him that we're
going away to-morrow"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"on a second
honeymoon."
"Oh!" said Christine softly.