“Surely,” said Nicholas gently, “you knew me better than that? Surely
you needn’t ’ve thought——”
“You’re a man,” said Susan. “You don’t know how frightfully sensitive
about marriage a woman can be. Many a girl’s thrown away happiness
rather than let a man even suspect—quite wrongly—that she’s setting
the pace.”
“I’m inclined to think that still more have set the pace rather than run
the risk of throwing away happiness.”
Susan laughed.
“And, what’s more,” continued Kilmuir, “the latter have all my
sympathy.”
“Listen to the man,” said Susan.
“Supposing,” said Nicholas John, “I had been a bachelor. You naturally
thought I was, because there are still men left who travel with their
wives. I happen to have a good reason for not being one of them. Next
time I go abroad I hope my wife will be with me. But that’s by the way.
Supposing I had been a bachelor and, as such, eligible—to pull you out
of your slough. And supposing I’d decided that I loved you and had asked
you to be my wife. . . . And supposing you’d thought it good
enough. . . . D’you mean to say you’ld ’ve actually turned me down?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Susan.
“Why?”
“They call it,” said Susan, “‘self-respect.’ You might have sworn that
you loved me, but I should have been terrified that it was only
_Noblesse oblige_.”
“Surely a woman can distinguish pity from love?”
“A wife could, because she’ld be in a position to apply all sorts of
tests. But that’s not very much good. I mean, it’s a bit late . . .”
Kilmuir took out a cigarette.
“Three days ago,” he said slowly, “you told me I meant what I said.”
Susan started. “That what I said rang true. Yet I might have sworn that
I——”
“I know,” said the girl desperately. “But the terror of making a
mistake. . . .”
“Aren’t you digging too deep?” said Nicholas. “If somebody offers me a
drink and I feel thirsty, I jolly well take it. So long as it’s honest
liquor, I don’t bother about their motives. If I assume anything, I
assume that they wouldn’t ask me if they didn’t want me to have it.”
“You’re not going to compare marriage to a Martini?”
“They’re much the same. A happy marriage is like a slap-up cocktail, the
effect of which never passes off. . . . Well, if a man doesn’t offer
another a tenpenny drink unless he wants him to have it, d’you seriously
think he’s going to offer his heart, his home, his name, his fortune,
his future to any daughter of Eve that ever was foaled—unless he wants
her to have ’em?”
“Prosper Le Gai did.”
“Only to save Isoult’s neck. And, though she knew that, she took him.
What’s more, my lady, it was a great success.”
Susan began to shake with laughter.
“That was an unfortunate instance, wasn’t it?” she said. “You know,
you’re too well read. I should have got away with that with most of the
people I know.”
“It’s a question of Greeks meeting,” said Nicholas John. “Or deeps
calling. We’ve more or less the same tastes. I think you like the dawn
and the silence of high places and the roar of the woods when the wind
is laying on——”
“And the thud and suck of the surf and the baby talk of a brook and
great cotton-wool clouds in the sky and a wind you can lean
against. . . . Oh, I should think I do.”
For a moment the girl was transfigured.
Sitting upright, her grave eyes shining, her lips parted and her sweet
pretty head thrown back, she might have been some Nereid out of some
Odyssey. His eyes ablaze, Kilmuir regarded her, fascinated. . . .
Then she lowered her head, and the light in her eyes died.
“But that sort of life’s not for me,” she said abstractedly.
“Look here,” said Nicholas John. “D’you want that sort of life?”
“What d’you mean?”
“What I say—as usual,” said Kilmuir. He waved his hand. “Would you like
to wash all this out? Would you like to get down to Nature? Spend nine
months of the year under her wing? Sell this mess for a birthright? Know
the rain on your face, and——”
“Are you offering me a land-agent’s job?”
The man looked at his finger-tips.
“It’s more of a stewardship,” he said. “There’s a post at my place in
Scotland which you could fill—most admirably. It’s been vacant—oh,
twenty years now, because I could never find the right person to take it
on.”
Susan put a hand to her head.
“It—it sounds like a fairy-tale,” she said. “A girl—steward. . . . Of
course, you’re making this up—creating some sinecure out of compassion
for me.”
“No I’m not,” said Kilmuir. “The post’s going. Quite a good house, and
about—about six hundred a year. Fuel. I could have filled it, of
course: but I didn’t want someone who’ld get fed up in a week. D’you
think you could stick it? It’s lonely up there—after this: and the
dawn’s a bit late in the winter, and—I’ve known it pretty cold.”
“D’you think I’ld mind that? But what d’you know of me? What makes you
think I could manage? I don’t even know myself. In fact, I’m sure I
couldn’t. I don’t know what stewards do. I couldn’t control and
order—I’ld try to learn, of course, and I’ld simply love the life. I’m
choked here—tied and cooped and sickened and choked. I hardly saw a
city before I was twelve years old. I was born and bred up in Maine. My
grandfather’s place was there. . . .” She hesitated—then burst out
suddenly. “Six years ago he died, and everything crashed. They sold my
saddles and my very own mare with the others I used to ride. I couldn’t
prove she was mine, and if I could have I hadn’t got any money to buy
her corn. They sold the curtains I’d made to hang in my rooms, and lamps
and mirrors and pictures I’d saved up to buy. They sold
everything—house, woods, farms, hills, valleys. . . . And I who’d been
mistress of it all was sold too. At least, I was put up for sale. But
then you know that. . . . And all because my grandfather had forgotten
to sign his will. . . . What was I saying? Oh, I know. Well, now you see
why your fantasy dazzles me so. But don’t let’s talk about it any more.
I know it’s out of the question, and you know it too. Don’t think I
don’t appreciate——”
“Why is it out of the question?”
“Oh, for a thousand reasons. I should have no authority. A woman——”
“I am obeyed—up there.”
“I don’t care. A woman can do many things, but she can’t fill a post
like that. You know you’re only saying it out of pure——”
“I’m not,” said Kilmuir steadily. “It’s always been held by a woman. The
last . . . died . . . twenty years ago.” His voice became very soft.
“She was the sweetest lady—with the gentlest smile. She never gave an
order in all her blessed life, but I think if she’d asked the waves to
stop their fretting there would have been a calm. I’ve seen her tend a
horse that the grooms were afraid to feed; I’ve seen wild birds on her
shoulder; and once I saw a drunkard pour out his store of whisky on the
ground before her eyes. I tell you the roughest fisherman hung upon her
will. You see, she always understood. She never taught, yet everyone
learned of her: she was so humble, yet she was found a queen. Her
laugh—well, Eve may have laughed like that, before the apple. . . . And
then . . . one day . . . she died. . . .” He took out a letter-case and
discovered a photograph. Then he rose and stood in front of the girl.
“For what it’s worth, that’s a picture of her.”
Susan stared at the beautiful, eager face. . . .
A crazy truth, such as one finds in dreams, kept thrusting into her
brain.
Sharply she flung up her head.
“_Your mother?_” she whispered.
Nicholas nodded.
“I want you to take her place. . . . You see, I’m—I’m not married,
darling.” Susan started violently, and the man set a hand on her
shoulder. “I’m—I’m not that Kilmuir.”
“O-o-oh!”
For a moment she stared at him wildly. Then she closed her eyes, let her
head fall and buried her face in her hands.
Nicholas continued steadily.
“It isn’t much to offer—a share in my lonely life. But it won’t be
lonely any more if you’ll accept it. I never thought I should marry. I
never thought I’ld find anyone I’ld care to see in her place. And then
. . . at last . . . I saw you. . . . And the moment I saw you, I knew
. . . I’m poor, you know, but if you’d been worth twenty millions, I’ld
’ve asked you to be my wife. You see, I love you, my lady: and so I
can’t help myself. I love your beautiful temples and the droop of your
precious lips: I love your grave grey eyes and your sweet pretty ways
. . .” He hesitated. Then, “I warn you, I won’t be able to give you much
of a time. I can’t even afford a car, Susan. At least, I haven’t been
able to yet. But I think, if we were careful, perhaps . . .” He took her
wrists and drew her hands from her face. She continued to hang her head.
“Oh, my blessed lady, I want you so much: and, as you don’t mind the
cold and the quiet, don’t you think you could——”
“_Noblesse oblige_,” wailed the girl. “_Noblesse oblige._”
“Oh, you darling,” cried Nicholas, lifting her to her feet.
Susan flung up her head and stared at the face of her squire three
inches away.
With his arms about her, Nicholas smiled back.
“I confess,” he said, “I’ld ’ve liked to feel that you loved me, but
I’ld rather you took me out of pity than not at all.”
A child put her hands on his shoulders.
“Do you really love me?” she whispered.
Nicholas smiled down.
“No,” he said. “I’m doing it out of pity.”
A radiant, mischievous look leapt into the child’s grey eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and put up her mouth.
* * * * *
Ten glorious minutes had passed, and Susan and Nicholas were standing in
the _salon bleu_, drinking each other’s healths in rose-coloured
Clicquot. Ten or twelve fellow-guests were hard by, flicking their
several appetites with the same beverage. Among them, their recent
difference adjusted, were ‘the Duke of Culloden’ and Labotte. The
latter’s hand was bandaged and reclining in a sling.
A servant entered with a card.
This he took directly to ‘the Duke.’
The youth glanced at it and frowned.
“Say I’m not here,” he said.
The servant bowed and turned away.
“Stop,” said Nicholas John.
The servant hesitated, and a hush fell upon the room.
“Bring me that card.”
With an apologetic glance at ‘Culloden,’ the fellow did as he was bid.
Nicholas picked up the card and read the name.
“Where is _Monsieur le Comte_?”
“_Monsieur le Comte est couché._”
“_Et Madame?_”
“_Madame aussi, Monsieur._”
“Then show this gentleman in.”
“_Bien, Monsieur_,” said the man, and made his escape. . . .
Amid an electric silence Nicholas picked up his glass and drank
comfortably.
Susan was touching his arm.
“Nicholas! What are you doing?”
Her lover turned with a swift smile.
“I want him to meet you, lady.”
“But——”
Labotte was before them, speaking acidly.
“Your frien’ ’as nod seem to unnerstan’——”
“Address yourself to me,” said Kilmuir.
Labotte stared. Then he looked Nicholas up and down.
“I am nod a servant,” he said.
“No,” said the other. “I knew that by your coat.”
Labotte drew himself up.
“I do nod know ’oo you are,” he said loftily, “an’ I do nod gare, but
eet ees good you shall know that in France when a gennelman ’as
gommanded it was nod use to gommand the opposide in ’is faze. You ’af
’ear my frien’ dell that ’e was nod to be seen an’ then you mus’ put
your lorng norse to a thing which ’as not belong to you at oll an’ make
jus’ the same business as my frien’ ’as nod wand.”
“And what,” said Nicholas, “is it to do with you? Why don’t you let
him—Hullo, he’s cleared.”
Labotte swung round. Then he spread out his hands.
“Ov gourse ’e ’as gorn,” he cried. “Eet ees you wot ’ave drive ’im away.
’E ’as say ’e is nod to be seen, an’ then you mus’ . . .”
Here a nice-looking man with a merry eye was ushered into the room.