WITH A PURPOSE.
When Gertrude made up her mind to seek out a marriage-portion for
herself, whose chief ingredient should be money, with love as
a secondary consideration, she set herself with her usual cool
forethought to consider the matter of Reggie Alston.
Reggie was a friend, and a friend only he must remain, and to this end
the regular correspondence which he and she had kept up since Reggie
left school, must become irregular and fitful. If only he would take
his summer holiday in the school holidays, Gertrude thought she could
manage somehow to be away when he was at home, and that would break
the continuity of other summer holidays when they two had spent much
time together, cycling and playing tennis. It was a pity for the boy
to set his heart on what could not be. Reggie ought to look out for a
girl with money, or at any rate for a girl who--who--liked being poor.
The result of these cogitations was that many a time when Reggie
confidently looked for a letter, none came, and when the dulness of a
week's work did happen to be enlivened by one of Gertrude's epistles,
somehow the letters were short and unsatisfactory and spoke only of
the most casual on-the-top-of-things topics. Reggie wondered over it
in silence. He hated writing scolding letters, and like Tom Green,
he felt that no amount of talking or writing could bring love, and
at first he only felt the miss of the regular correspondence, without
seeking for a reason other than the excuse that Gertrude must be
extra busy at school, or that she had fresh duties laid upon her
since Denys's engagement, of which he had heard a full account before
Gertrude had thought of reducing her correspondence.
He little dreamed that Gertrude herself missed the writing of those
old confidential letters far more than she had expected. She had
always saved up all the little experiences and jokes of school and
home to tell Reggie, and now it was very dull to be always pulling
herself up to remember to make her letters short and few and casual.
But when Easter Monday and his birthday arrived together, without
bringing any birthday remembrance other than a letter from his old
chum, Charlie Henchman, Reggie's heart went down to a depth for which
he had no idea there was room in his mechanism.
He had come down to breakfast in his dull little parlour, confidently
expecting to see Gertrude's handwriting on his table, and it was not
there.
He sat down mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and
the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on
his heart as it had never done before.
The small horsehair sofa where he sometimes tried to find a
resting-place and failed; the tiny chiffonnier, unenlightened by
a looking-glass or any ornament save a vase, which had been one of
Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always
kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the
uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with
its coarse cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while
he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, home with
Gertrude.
The half loaf of bread and the pat of butter which always tasted of
the chiffonnier-cupboard, but had to be kept there because when a
piece went out to the larder, none ever returned, filled him with
loathing this morning.
Why was there no letter from Gertrude? His landlady bustled in with
his tea and a rasher of bacon and a slice of toast, the last item, as
she remarked, being for a birthday treat, and he roused himself from
his disappointment to thank her for the little attention, and when she
was gone he slowly opened Charlie's letter.
It was just a newsy, chatty letter, telling of the pleasures of his
holiday at Whitecliff and especially of the pleasure of being with
Denys for a whole week, but when he came to one sentence, written
only with the thought of giving pleasure to Reggie, Reggie stopped and
frowned.
"Gertrude looks awfully well and seems enjoying herself tremendously,"
wrote Charlie. "She and Audrey are quite friends, which is convenient,
and Denys and I don't feel selfish if we walk behind and let Gertrude,
Audrey, and Cecil make the pace in front."
So Gertrude was at Whitecliff, and she had never thought it worth
while to tell him she was going to have such a nice change!
She was enjoying herself tremendously! Hitherto she had always made
him a sharer in her pleasures by her vivacious descriptions of them.
Who was Cecil?
He looked across the narrow Scotch street, on to the row of small
houses opposite him. The morning sunshine was flooding them, while his
room lay in shadow. That was like his life. He was in the shadow and
other people were in the sunshine--especially this Cecil.
He ate up his breakfast at last and made a good meal of it too, for
he was a healthy fellow, and even stale bread and tasty butter go down
when you are hungry, and then he got out his cycle and polished it up,
for there was a club run on and he was going to ride part of the way
out with them, returning early to attend a wedding in the afternoon.
He decided, as he rubbed away at his machine, that he would not
be married on a Bank holiday, when his turn came. He would not
like his guests to feel bored at losing one of their precious
few-and-far-between holidays. Saturday was a much more sensible
day for a wedding.
Bored or not bored, the wedding party was large and cheerful, and
being mostly made up of the chief townsfolk and local gentry who
banked at the one and only Bank, Reggie knew most of the guests, and
was himself, partly owing to his merry, boyish ways, and partly owing
to his modesty and readiness to serve anybody in the smallest things,
quite a popular person. He enjoyed the first part of the proceedings
very much.
It was a lovely day, with brilliant sunshine and a warm air that
seemed as if summer had come to surprise the Spring, and directly the
bride had cut the cake there was a general exodus to the garden, where
camp chairs and rout seats stood invitingly on the lawn, and arbours
and sheltered paths waited for visitors to rest or walk beneath their
budding loveliness.
And behind the groups of gay dresses, set off by black coats and light
trousers, came white aproned waitresses with cakes and champagne. In
vain Reggie, who had missed getting a cup of tea indoors, watched for
a tray of tea cups. Champagne and ices, cakes and champagne, champagne
and sandwiches. There appeared to be nothing else, and everybody
seemed to be drinking champagne like so much water. Everybody, that
is, but Reggie and the Scotch minister and his wife.
Except for the desire for a beverage that was not champagne, Reggie
did not think a great deal about what he supposed was usual at
weddings, till he caught a whisper between two girls whom he was
piloting to see some ducklings on the pond at the bottom of the
garden.
"Howard can't walk straight already," whispered one with a giggle.
"Isn't it horrid!" answered the other, "Leslie Johns took me round
the garden just now, and he told me he had had far more champagne than
Howard had, but Howard has a weak head. Howard wanted me to go to
the conservatories with him. I'm glad I didn't; I should have been
positively ashamed to be seen with him. Why can't such fellows let
champagne alone?"
"They might at least know when to stop," sneered the first speaker.
Reggie, leading the way a few paces in front, between close rows of
gooseberry bushes, heard every word, and he set his teeth.
The subtle distinction between the man who had taken a quantity of
champagne and shewed no effects, and the man who had only had a little
and showed it, did not appeal to him. He felt a vast pity for Howard,
though he had not the slightest idea who Howard might be.
He got rid of his charges sooner than he had hoped, for a hint that
the bride would soon be down from changing her dress, reached the
girls and made them hurry back to the house, and Reggie, suddenly sick
at heart with combined remembrances that he and everybody else must
probably, in the general gathering of guests to one place, see poor
Howard's faltering footsteps, and the thought of Gertrude enjoying
herself so much that she could not write for his birthday, made his
way slowly and by a circuitous route back to the main party.
He was nearing the house when a turn in the path brought him face to
face with a young and handsomely-dressed woman, his own Bank Manager's
wife, Mrs. Gray.
"Oh, Reggie!" she said with a sort of gasp, "oh, Reggie, whatever
shall I do? Look!"