When Mrs. Lancing went upstairs her hostess went with her.
"So the dear motor did go wrong, after all," observed Mrs. Brenton, a
trifle triumphantly. "I think I had the best of it in my despised
one-horse shay."
Camilla threw off her furs with a sigh.
"Dear Agnes," she said, "I hate making you conceited, but truth compels
me to admit that for once you are right. A motor is a beautiful thing
if it goes smoothly, but when it goes wrong it is just the other kind
of thing."
"Of course I am right," said Mrs. Brenton, as she stirred the fire
briskly.
She was a plain woman with a hard-riding figure and grey hair neatly
plaited, but she had a pair of handsome and kind eyes, and a delightful
voice.
"Give me horses," she said. "By-and-by, when I am in my little grave, I
have no doubt folk will be switchbacked to America and home again; but
I hate experiments--I am a little too old for them--and the best car
that is made is only a thing on trial, you know."
She helped Camilla to slip out of the big coat.
"Fortunately, you were well wrapped up," she said. "But _what_ a weight
this coat is, Camilla! How can you walk in it at all? When did you
get it? I have not seen it before!"
"Oh, haven't you?" queried Mrs. Lancing, in a tone of very real
astonishment. "Why, I have had it _ages_; got it at a Veronique sale.
It was absurdly cheap."
She told these various untruths quite glibly, and then made haste to
get away from the subject.
She was not a little afraid of Mrs. Brenton at times, although, indeed,
she would have been singularly ungrateful--and Camilla was never
ungrateful--if she had not realized that in this old friend--one who
had known her when she was a mere child--she had a staunch and a loving
ally--a friend who in sickness and in health gave her almost an anxious
affection, and whose curiosity to know what was passing with her arose
from the best motives. But Camilla always dreaded being compelled to
answer questions, or having to give an account of herself; she was so
weary of having good advice given her.
Of what use, so she argued to herself, would it be to let Agnes know
how worried she was, and into what a hopeless muddle her pretty feet
had strayed?
"Agnes cannot help me," she said to herself; "and she would only worry
and think the end of all things had come if I were to tell her how I
stand just now. And then she would scold, and talk about the future
solemnly, and oh! I know I should scream if she started the old
discussion to-night; my nerves are all on wires! If she _could_ help me
it would be another matter, but I suppose a five-pound note would be
about the utmost poor old Agnes could produce in an emergency." And
Camilla shrugged her shoulders. Just before leaving town for Yelverton
she had spent her last available five pounds at a hair-dresser's,
while, at the same time, a writ for the sables she had worn so
becomingly that day had been sent to her by registered post that
morning.
She threw off her hat and veil.
"I am rather anxious, Agnes," she said. "I have had no letter from
nurse to-day."
Mrs. Brenton took the bait instantly.
"Anxious? What about? There is no need to fuss yourself; nurse never
does write freely."
"She promised faithfully to send me word every day," said Mrs. Lancing,
half fretfully.
"Well, look here, I'll go and telephone through for you," said the
other woman; "with just a little luck I shall find the line clear. The
rush is off about this time, as a rule."
Mrs. Lancing had slipped from her outdoor clothes into a very pretty
dressing-gown by the time the telephone conversation was at an end.
"Everything is all right," Mrs. Brenton announced cheerily. "The
children are just gone to bed. They have been very good, and are quite
well."
"I miss them dreadfully," said Camilla, and her voice broke a little.
Turning, she picked up two photographs that were on the dressing-table
and kissed them passionately.
"Miss them!" said Mrs. Brenton in her brisk way, "I should think you
did! Dear little souls, I can't think why on earth you didn't bring
them with you; there is heaps of room, and children are never a bother
to me, as you know. Well, now I'll trot away again. I expect you feel
thoroughly tired out, Camilla. Dinner will be half an hour late, so you
can take it easy. Why don't you have forty winks? That is a heavenly
chair for a snooze."
Mrs. Lancing was already crouched up in the luxurious depths of the
chintz-covered chair. She yawned as she cuddled into the cushions.
"Fancy Sammy Broxbourne turning up so suddenly. Why didn't you tell me
he was coming, Agnes?" she asked, a little jerkily.
"Because I did not know it myself. He wired this morning to ask if he
could run down for a day or two, and as I was not here Dick answered
for me, saying, of course, he could come. I can't say that I think he
is much improved, and he has put on a lot of flesh. He used to be
rather a pretty boy, and now he is only a commonplace and very vulgar
young man. By the way, how did he and Rupert Haverford get on?"
inquired Mrs. Brenton, a little abruptly. She had made a move towards
the door, and now turned back again.
Camilla Lancing shrugged her shoulders.
"A very clear case of hatred at first sight! The moral Haverford sat in
a corner and scowled in silence, and, of course, Sammy used all the
swear words he knows just on purpose to make things pleasant."
Mrs. Brenton compressed her lips; there was definite disappointment in
her eyes.
She stood a moment as if she had something more she would have liked to
say; then with an imperceptible shrug of her shoulders she turned away,
and, with another command to Camilla to rest went out of the room.
Mrs. Lancing nestled herself more closely into the big chair and shut
her eyes. Just as the maid was stealing softly away she called the
woman back.
"Don't go downstairs, Dennis," she said, "but stay in the
dressing-room. I am going to try and sleep, but I may want you."
It was a relief that Agnes Brenton had gone, but she was almost afraid
of being left quite alone.
Her maid took her sewing into the dressing-room, but Mrs. Lancing had
no intention of going to sleep. She lay with closed eyes, however, and
after awhile some tears escaped from the thick lashes and rolled down
her cheeks.
"I never thought he would come back so soon," she said to herself so
wearily, so miserably; "he said he would be away for ages and ages, and
... and I had almost forgotten." She turned her face on the cushions,
and bit them as if a sudden physical pang had shot through her, and so
she lay, breathing in a sobbing fashion for some little time; then she
lifted her head and pressed her hands to her brow and to her hot eyes.
"And of _course_ this must come," she said, with fretful passion, "when
I am so worried I don't know which way to turn! Oh, how tired I am of
living, sometimes! Why didn't he write to some one, then I should have
heard he was coming, and I should have been prepared!"
She unpinned her hair, thick, short, brown hair, and lay back again on
the cushions.
"Why doesn't Rupert Haverford speak?" she asked herself in the same
fretful way, I "simply can't go on struggling and fighting in this
weary way. I was never meant to struggle and fight; and is it my fault
that I make mistakes? How _can_ I be different? I was brought up to be
what I am. When other children were given twopence a week to put into a
money-box, I was given a five-pound note to spend on dolls or make into
kites. Of course I am extravagant! Of course I get into holes! I should
be a living wonder if I didn't!"
She pushed the thick hair back from her brows, and, slipping from the
chair, bunched herself on the hearth-rug, holding her hands before her
face to shield it from the blaze.
"I won't believe he doesn't care," she said to herself, her thoughts
reverting to Haverford again. "He _does_ care, only he won't speak. And
he makes me so nervous. I feel as if he were looking at me through a
microscope. I am sure Agnes thinks he cares!" She sighed, and shut her
eyes for a moment; then her mind worked into an easier groove. "I do
believe Sammy was glad to see me!" was her next thought. "He wasn't a
bit changed. Perhaps I am worrying myself for nothing!" Her face
lightened; the lips, the eyes grew eager. As was inevitable with her,
despair began to give way slowly but surely before the invulnerable
optimism of her nature. She pinned up her hair, and sat gazing into the
fire, humming to herself softly while her mind pieced together a dozen
different possibilities, and carried her gradually but surely away from
doubt and definite fear. When the clock chimed eight she sprang to her
feet.
"My black gown, Dennis," she said. She had convinced herself that
Rupert Haverford would like his wife to wear black and sober colours.
In the same way she assured herself that he would read family prayers
every morning. If she married him she determined that she would always
breakfast in her room.
A little packet was lying on the dressing-table, and she opened it with
a smile on her lips and pleasure in her eyes.
"Look, Dennis, what Mr. Haverford bought for the children! This is for
Betty, and this for baby! Is it too late to send them to-night?...
Won't they be pleased? No," she decided; "I don't think I will send
them. Darling hearts, they will expect me to bring them something
to-morrow. Can't you see them waiting for me, Dennis?"
"They'll be in a rare state of excitement, I expect," said the maid,
with a smile.
Camilla Lancing fingered the trinkets as she sat and had her hair
dressed.
"He is really kind," she said to herself.
Contrasted with the other man, he had a new and great charm for her
to-night--a value he had not had before.
"And though he is dull, he is certainly not vulgar," she mused on; "it
is extraordinary that he should be as he is, and that Sammy should be
such a vulgarian; and yet the one is a professedly middle-class man,
and the other is connected with any amount of big people. I wish I
understood him a little better! But he puzzles me, and he worries me;"
she sighed here fretfully. "Of course I _must_ marry him if he asks me;
yet the mere thought of living all day long in such a starchy
atmosphere takes the life out of me! I thought he would have been so
easy to manage when we first met! And instead of accepting our views he
imposes his own. No wonder he is not popular! I only wish," said
Camilla, sighing again as she got up, and looked at her pretty head
critically in the mirror, "I only wish he were twenty years older, and
then I would put all my troubles before him, and ask him to help me. He
would help me now. I know that perfectly well, but I should lose him if
I told him the truth. And I don't want to lose him. I can't lose him,"
she said a little feverishly, "especially now, especially now," she
whispered.
Mrs. Lancing was one of the last down that evening--in fact, she kept
the rest of the party waiting for dinner, but when she did come she was
so charming and so apologetic and looked so fascinating that every one
forgave her.
Sir Samuel Broxbourne took her in to dinner, and she sat where she
could not see Haverford.
She could hear a little of the conversation, however, that passed at
the other end of the table, and she changed colour when she heard him
tell Mrs. Brenton that he was going to town by the first train in the
morning.
She translated this to mean a sudden retreat on his part. For there had
been a half arrangement that he should take her back to London in his
motor, and as the chauffeur had promised that the car would be at
Yelverton either late that night or very early the next morning, there
was no reason why this engagement should be broken. She ate the rest of
her dinner in a subdued manner, and as she followed the other women out
of the room she paused a moment by Haverford's side.
"So you won't motor back to-morrow?" she said hurriedly. "I am quite
disappointed.... I was looking forward to it."
His face flushed.
"I am sorry," he answered, "but I must go up quite early; my mother is
not well," he explained.
"Oh!" said Camilla; she was at once reassured "I am _so_ sorry. I hope
you are not very anxious? But you must tell me about it a little
later." And gathering her clinging black draperies in her hand she
smiled up at him and then fluttered through the doorway and vanished.
Whilst the other women were talking together, Mrs. Brenton found
herself alone with Camilla.
"I want to say something to you," she said in a low voice.
"Is it anything nice?" asked Camilla, with a faint smile.
Mrs. Brenton touched the black chiffon that bordered Camilla's
beautiful shoulders with a caressing hand.
"I don't want you to play for such heavy points to-night, darling," she
said; "it is all very well if the money comes back to you, but I am
afraid you have been losing rather heavily since you came down here,
haven't you? Sometimes I feel tempted," Mrs. Brenton went on, "to
impose a _maximum_ sum for points here, but I suppose I should get
myself well hated if I did! People would say it is a free country, and
they ought to do what they like with their own."
"That is why you are scolding me," said Camilla, with her pretty smile.
Mrs. Brenton shook her head.
"You are not other people to me, and I do hate to see you risking too
much, Camilla."
Camilla turned and just lightly kissed Mrs. Brenton's hand.
"Oh, we must risk something sometimes!" she said impatiently; then she
added, "Don't worry about me, dear old thing, I really haven't lost
very much, and I dare say I shall get it all back to-night. I feel in
luck. Look"--she held out her wrist--"isn't this a sweet thing? Sammy
has just given it to me to wear as a charm. He brought it from some
weird place in America, and declares it is a magic stone, and that I
shall have everything I want now that I wear it. I must go and show it
to Ena Bayliss," Camilla said, with a wicked smile. "She will be _so_
jealous! She rather affects Sammy, you know...."
When the men came there was no opportunity for a little chat between
Mrs. Lancing and Haverford, for the card-players seated themselves
immediately at the tables.
Mrs. Brenton, who was not a bridge fanatic, beckoned to Rupert
Haverford to come and sit with her in her pet corner.
She teased him heartily for a little while about his breakdown that
afternoon.
"You will never get _me_ in that magnificent car of yours again," she
said. "Why don't you have horses? You look just the sort of man who
would have good animals, and know how to treat them well."
"I have a few horses," Haverford answered; "you must come and see them
one day, if you will, Mrs. Brenton. I don't quite know why I took to
motoring, except that I have a leaning towards engineering, and the
mechanism of the cars interests me, and then I like rushing about. I
have not yet got used to my idle life," he said, a little restlessly.
"Old habits are very strong with me; I wake every morning of my life at
five o'clock, Mrs. Brenton, and I can't lie in bed a moment afterwards.
You see, for nearly seventeen years I was accustomed to be out and at
work by six o'clock every day."
Mrs. Brenton had taken up some knitting, and her fingers were moving
briskly, though her eyes were fixed on her companion.
"I should so like to know all about those days," she said; "I dare say
lots of people would not believe you if you were to say it, Mr.
Haverford," she added half lightly, "but I came to a conclusion about
you a long time ago, and that conclusion is, that you are the sort of
man who is only happy when he is working--working seriously, I mean,
from morning to night. But you are not always idle now, are you?"
Haverford laughed.
"I don't think I do an hour's work in a week," he said. "Very often the
old call is so strong that I turn my back on all my greatness, and I
steal away to the north, to the dirty, smoky, dull old town where I
lived so long. But"--he laughed again, this time half sadly--"there is
nothing for me to do; another man fills my old post and fills it well.
However, I am planning a different future; I have certain pet schemes
of my own which I have not yet put into working order. When I have
started them they will help at least to pass some of my time more
profitably than I pass it now."
"What sort of schemes?" asked Mrs. Brenton. He did not answer her at
once; he was looking at the card-players, at Camilla's dainty figure.
The lines of her throat and shoulders were exquisite, framed in the
black of her gown. She was laughing; he loved to hear her laugh, it was
such young laughter.
"Oh!" he said, rousing himself, "they are just some fancies that have
come to me; I will tell you about them, Mrs. Brenton, when I have them
more planned out--I am going to travel," he added a little abruptly.
"Ever since I was a boy I have longed to see the other side of the
world! I don't quite know why I have not gone long ago." He was smoking
at Mrs. Brenton's wish, and he broke off some of the cigar ash into a
silver tray.
"I got my first love of wandering when I was a very little lad," he
said in his rather abrupt way. "My father brought me up on travel books
and books of adventure. He had so longed to know other countries and
other people, but this was denied him----If he had lived----!" He broke
off sharply. Agnes Brenton looked at him; he was frowning, and he was
staring into the fire; he seemed to have drifted far, far away in his
thoughts from the light and warmth and cosy charm of his actual
surroundings.
Suddenly he turned and looked at her; his eyes were very bright.
"My father was a hero," he said--there was something in his voice that
made Mrs. Brenton bite her lip nervously--"he was a doctor--a man who
worked all day and sometimes all night in that crowded, tragically poor
factory town where I spent so many years of my life. I worshipped my
father, Mrs. Brenton; he was an enthusiast, a dreamer, a saint. He died
in harness, sacrificed to the poverty and misery of the people, who
were his first thought. There was a fearful outbreak of fever and
diphtheria, and he did superhuman work." Haverford shrugged his
shoulders; he was trying to speak evenly. "Every man's endurance has a
limit, and my father paid the natural, the inevitable penalty. That was
a great many years ago, but he lives with me almost as clearly as
though he were really in existence now! I have only one reproach
against his memory"--the young man got up restlessly. His cigar had
gone out, he found a box of matches, and lit it again. "He sent me away
to avoid the infection," he said In a low voice, "and he died before I
could get to him! That was hard! He could never have realized how hard
that was to me, or surely he would not have done it."
Mrs. Brenton's eyes were wet. It was not alone his story, the strained
tones of his voice that moved her; the man himself appealed to her
sharply, and for the first time. She marvelled as she listened, as she
looked at him now, how she could have so misunderstood him. It had
become the fashion with most people to call Rupert Haverford hard
names, to find him mean, selfish, and ungenerous; Mrs. Brenton had
never gone so far as that. She had, in truth, judged him leniently,
recognizing in his blunt fashion of speaking, in his straightforward
manner, and rather deliberate methods, only the natural influence of
his former circumstances; indeed, it had always seemed to her
remarkable that any man who had toiled as Haverford had done, whose
life had been set for so long in one narrow groove, should have taken
his new place so quietly, and have moved with such unconscious dignity
in the new world which revolved about him to-day. He was distinctly out
of the fashion, it was true, in many ways, but he was never uncouth,
and though there was at times a North Country burr in his voice, he
spoke with refinement. In physique he was refined too, and no one could
find fault with the way he dressed.
Mrs. Brenton had not gushed over him, but she had always liked him.
Nevertheless, there had been moments when he had chilled her; moments
in which the possibility of mingling Camilla Lancing's future with his
(a scheme which she cherished warmly) had seemed almost preposterous;
when he had made her both impatient and angry, and she had almost
longed to shake him out of his grave, stolid ways and practical outlook.
To-night all this was changed; he was a new man to her to-night; she
felt drawn to him very closely. She tried to say something in answer to
his last speech, but even as the words trembled on her lips Haverford
spoke on in his usual quiet way.
"When I do start on my travels I think I shall bequeath the care of my
motors to you, Mrs. Brenton. Though you hate them, I know you are too
tender-hearted to ill-treat them."
She laughed, falling in with his change of mood.
"I will take care of them if you will promise to come back. You must
come back," she said, "and marry, and go into Parliament, and generally
settle down."
"Yes, I suppose I shall marry some day," Haverford answered. He had
passed away entirely from that touch of emotion; indeed, his eyes
twinkled. "Marriage is about the one occupation that my change of
fortune has suggested to me from the very commencement. But I am not in
a hurry," he added. "Do you know why I like you, Mrs. Brenton?" he said
all at once.
She shook her head.
"I am only too glad that you do like me," she answered, with a smile.
"I don't seek to know the cause."
"Well, you appeal to me for many reasons," said Rupert Haverford, "but
particularly because you are about the only woman I know who has not
insisted on finding me a wife. It is such an absurd idea if one stops
to think about it," he said lightly; "one chooses one's own servants,
one does not go running about to one's friends to ask them if a
particular man is likely to be a good coachman or butler or gardener;
but in the matter of a wife everybody seems to consider that he or she
has a right to choose for another person."
Mrs. Brenton smiled, but only faintly.
"I believe I am just as bad at match-making as most people," she said;
"you must not endow me with unknown qualities."
They drifted into silence after this.
It was pleasant to Rupert Haverford to sit and watch Mrs. Brenton's
comely hands busying themselves with the knitting.
She wore a few good rings, but for the rest her gown was old-fashioned,
not to say shabby, and she had no other jewellery except an
insignificant brooch or two.
He was quite in earnest when he said that she was the one person out of
all his new acquaintances whom he liked the best.
There was something so thorough about her. He could quite believe the
stories of her prowess as a sportswoman and a hard rider to hounds; and
yet she was very womanly.
It gave him an extraordinary sense of pleasure to-night to realize that
she was Camilla Lancing's friend, and that she had a tender and even an
anxious interest in the woman about whom he was struggling with
himself; the woman who at once tempted and repelled him.
He smoked his cigar through, and then after a little desultory
conversation he rose and said "Good night."
"Pray tell Mrs. Lancing that my motor is at her disposal if she cares
to use it to-morrow," he said, "I don't think she need fear another
breakdown."
"You won't use it yourself?" Mrs. Brenton asked.
"No, it will take me too long to get to town. I must see my mother
before going into the City. I shall not say 'Good-bye,'" Rupert added,
as he held her hand in his, "for you are coming up to town almost
directly, are you not? And you have promised to dine with me, you know."
"I am longing to see your house," Agnes Brenton said. "I hear it is
full of beautiful things. Camilla has raved to me about it."
"It is beautiful," he agreed, and then he just smiled; "you see, I can
say that because I have had very little to do with putting it together.
I inherited nearly all my treasures."
He was gone before Mrs. Lancing, in a pause of the game, realized that
he was nowhere near. She got up from the card-table suddenly; there was
a patch of hot colour on her cheeks.
"Give me a cigarette, Agnes," she said; "now that Mr. Bogie has gone, I
can smoke in peace."
"Mr. 'Bogie,' as you call him," Mrs. Brenton said evenly, "is leaving
us very early to-morrow morning. But he wants you to use his motor if
you care about doing so."
"Thanks, no," said Mrs. Lancing; "I think I have had enough of a
motor-car for a day or two. What have you been talking about, you two?"
she asked suddenly, after a little pause. She threw away the cigarette
as she spoke; smoking with her was only a pretence.
"I don't know," said Agnes Brenton, "nothing in particular. He is the
sort of man one need never try to make conversation with. I mean to see
as much of him as I possibly can; I like him very much."
Camilla made a _moue_ at her.
"You are well matched--just two dear preachy people together," she
said. "He ought to have been a schoolmaster. I know I shock him
awfully, don't I?"
"My dear child," said Mrs. Brenton, "Mr. Haverford has not confided in
me, but if I speak the truth I don't think he troubles himself about
you much one way or the other."
Camilla Lancing was amazed and sharply hurt.
"Oh! _don't_ you?" she said. "Oh! that is quite a new idea! As a matter
of fact, I had a sort of notion he was thinking about me a great deal."
"You are a vain little person," said Mrs. Brenton, in the same even
way; "but there, trot along; they are calling for you. Sammy has
finished dealing."
No one was stirring when Rupert Haverford descended the stairs the next
morning. He breakfasted alone; but just as he was about to get into the
brougham and drive away, one of the maids brought him a little note. It
was from Camilla.
"Thank you so much," she wrote, "for wishing me to use your motor,
but I don't care to go in it without you. Do let me know how your
mother is. I hope with all my heart that you will find her better.
Don't forget you have promised to have tea with the children next week!
"Sincerely your friend,
"C. L."
He slipped the note into his pocket-book. It was pleasant to have that
little remembrance from her.
Passing the corner of the house he bent forward unconsciously to look
at the windows of the room where she was, but the blinds were drawn; in
fact, as he took out the little note and read it again, he saw that it
was dated at three o'clock that morning. She must have scribbled it
before going to bed. He knew she had gone to her room very late, for he
had sat waiting for the sound of her voice and the swish of her gown.
Their rooms had been on the same landing.
He slipped his pocket-book back with a sigh, and as he drove rapidly
away he found himself wishing with every turn of the wheels that he was
going back again; that was the curious part of this charm which Camilla
exercised over him.
When he was near to her she vexed him, she troubled him; when he was
away he only felt the appealing claim of her beauty, of that
simplicity, that "insouciance" that was so apart from and yet, with
her, so much a part of her womanliness.
She was such a curious mixture, pre-eminently womanly, tender,
sympathetic, and, at the same time, tainted unmistakably with
pronounced worldliness. Much as he had studied her, he felt quite
unequal to gauging her character.
Once he had heard some woman declare that Camilla was "insincere." He
had felt a wholly unreasonable amount of anger against that woman. And
yet he was quite unprepared to defend her this morning against such an
accusation.
He had suffered, really suffered, when he had seen her with Broxbourne.
It was inconceivable to him that a woman so delicately fashioned as she
mentally (though not supremely intelligent, her mind had a tendency to
poetry and charm evinced unconsciously a score of times) could find
pleasure in the society of this young man with his rough voice, his
sporting look, his peculiar manners. Nevertheless, she had laughed and
sparkled and met Sir Samuel with all the ease and intimacy of a comrade.
"It is because she is alone, because she has no one to lead her," he
said to himself as he sat in the train whirling to town. But ponder as
he might, he could offer to himself nothing convincing or satisfying
where Camilla Lancing was concerned. All he knew was that no matter how
his mind might busy itself with other thoughts, it always circled back
to Camilla in some fashion or other.
As he drew nearer to the smoke and the fog of the great city he closed
his eyes and dreamed of the day before--of that wide expanse of
restless, sun-kissed sea, with the sky fading in the distance into a
glorious sweep of gold and purple and grey.
In his imagination he could hear again the break of the waves on the
wet beach mingling with the musical hum of the car, and he could feel
once again that sense of delight, almost of possessive delight, as he
had looked back ever and anon and had met the smile of Camilla's sweet
eyes and pensive lips.
She seemed to be cut away from him altogether by this darkness and
heavy atmosphere.
The yellow gloom fell like a pall on all that was bright and beautiful
and desirable.
He longed to go back to the country; above all, he longed to see her
again, and quickly.