John called twice upon Hermione in London. On each occasion he was told
that the Princess was extremely sorry but she was too ill to receive
visitors. However, Elise assured him that Hermione had been “perfectly
lovely” about their marriage.
Everything was “perfectly lovely.” Mr. Brett cracked jokes all day long;
John had never looked so radiant; the neighbourhood rejoiced openly that
it was to keep Elise, suitably attached to an Englishman who understood
and respected the game laws; the servants showed a well bred toleration
for John. John’s relations (he turned out to have very few and they all
lived in Yorkshire) wrote charming letters; but in spite of all these
advantages there was a slight hitch somewhere.
It took John some time to discover, in all the flutter of delight around
him, where the hitch was. Mr. Brett was unchanged. He moved as usual
very slowly and carefully about the house and garden, reposed in long
chairs, took the points in or out of schemes, and smiled more
benevolently than usual at his secretary.
Elise continued to declare with obvious evasiveness that she was “too
happy for words,” but John, who had a persistent nature and was clear
sighted where he loved, asked why, if she was too happy for words, her
eyelids should be red?
Elise confessed at last, with tears, that there was just one thing she
wanted most dreadfully and couldn’t get.
Hermione wished to spend the last few weeks before their marriage at
Mambles, and Papa wouldn’t allow it. He was quite adamant, he had said:
“After you’re married this house is yours, you can have whom you like to
it—including me—but until I hand you over to John, Hermione stays
away. If she’s tired of London she can hire in the country. England
ain’t full.”
If Elise wanted, she could go to London and see Hermione; but that,
Elise explained to John, wasn’t what Hermione meant. Hermione was too
sick to enjoy London. She had a feeling that if she could lie on a long
chair in the garden and just watch Elise’s happiness, it would make up
for the loss of her own.
Hermione had been perfectly lovely about it.
Couldn’t John make Papa change his mind?
It was awkward for John to try, for on that very morning Mr. Brett had
presented him with Mambles.
“I shall settle Mambles on you, with an income on Elise,” Mr. Brett had
explained, with his eyes half shut, “and then if you and Elise want me
to stay on as she says, I’ll decline here. I may have years to decline
in, I may only have months, or, according to one doctor, I may not
decline at all, but go out splashless. But I want you and Elise to live
in your own home here at Mambles, not mine—it don’t do to start living
in other people’s homes. Dying can be done anywhere, it’s not as
important as it looks.”
After this renunciation on the part of Mr. Brett it seemed ungracious to
present him with a speedy request for another.
But Elise’s tears overcame John’s scruples. He found Mr. Brett in the
library by the open door which led on to the south terrace. He was
watching the birds fluttering about the edge of a stone bath.
“They’re having the deuce of a time,” he explained to John, without
turning his eyes, “step quiet so as not to disturb them. A whole raft
get round the rim together and shove—just like humans.”
“Mr. Brett,” said John resolutely, “I’ve been talking to Elise.”
“Sure,” agreed his father-in-law reassuringly. “As long as she don’t
fire you, let her talk: the great point with a woman is to have
everything out on the carpet. Whatever she thinks you don’t want her to
say, she’s got to say anyway; but if she puts it off, she gets
cold-blooded about it, the way Jael felt to Sisera when she planted that
nail, and palmed off the butter. If Jael had been encouraged to speak
right out and tell Sisera what she thought of him when he first arrived,
she wouldn’t have driven in that nail, she’d have put it away for the
first Hoodoo that made her keep things back.”
“Elise and I haven’t quarrelled,” explained John, ignoring this
unpleasant analogy, “but I have found her upset. It seems she wants
Hermione to stay here before our marriage, and if you’ll forgive me
saying so, Sir, I don’t see why she shouldn’t have her.”
“I’ll forgive you right along, John,” said Mr. Brett with a chuckle.
“I’m prepared to forgive anybody anything once it’s happened, but I’m
not prepared to let things happen that I don’t want to have to forgive.
And I’m damned if I’ll have Hermione inside this house before your
marriage.”
“I don’t quite see why—” said John a little resentfully.
Mr. Brett pulled his lean slanting limbs together and sat up straight;
he even stopped watching the birds. He looked at John attentively.
“Now, see here my son,” he observed, “marriage is tough. It takes a lot
of what you might call hand to hand breaking, with the law against you,
to spoil a marriage. Engagements is just the opposite, they break as
easily as a grasshopper’s hind leg—I guess that’s about the thinnest
thing in nature. You just keep calm and wait. You’ll have Mambles and
Hermione too, soon enough.”
“But Elise says,” urged John, faithful but faint-hearted, “that her
sister’s been wonderful about our engagement. She’s awfully keen for
Elise to be happy, and she thinks—from what Elise has said—that I’m
the man to make her so.”
“John,” said Mr. Brett grimly, “you’re so innocent a white owl would get
you! I’ve watched white owls, they show up in the dark, and that’s
against them, and they squeak before they’ve got their mouse, and that’s
against them too. I should reckon a white owl loses ten to one on each
mouse, every doggone evening of its life; but you’d be the time it got
home with the bacon.
“Of course Hermione is perfectly lovely about your marriage. She’d be
perfectly lovely about your engagement, when she’d broken it. Perfect
loveliness is Hermione’s line. I’ve never once seen that girl get riled,
and I’ve said things to her that’d make a lizard get on to its hind legs
and roar.
“All she ever said back was, ‘Dear Papa, I guess you’ve got the
indigestion I had.’ She’d given it to me.”
“But are you quite sure,” said John reflectively, “that you do full
justice to her? Sometimes you sound to me as if you were prejudiced
against Hermione.”
Mr. Brett did not laugh at this ingenuous suggestion of John’s. He
remained silent for a moment or two, then he said gently,
“John, do you in general think I know what I’m about?”
“I’ve never known you wrong, Sir,” said John with conviction. “You know
I have implicit confidence in your judgment—only—”
“Only,” interrupted Mr. Brett, holding up a warning forefinger and
shooting a glance at John that was as sharp as the edge of a knife,
“when it’s about the happiness of the one creature in the world I care
more for than one of those sparrows—you think I’m liable to judge
wrong?”
John had never seen Mr. Brett roused before. In a flash he saw what his
employer was like, and understood why, when he spoke even in his
flattest voice, his committees and employees jumped to obey him. John
was conscious that he was confronted by the power of a dynamic mind.
It was a benevolent power, but it was not the kind of power to gainsay.
John felt suddenly convinced that Mr. Brett was right even if Elise
thought he wasn’t.
“I see I’ve made a mistake in pressing the matter, Sir,” he muttered.
Mr. Brett nodded. “Never you mind, John,” he said kindly, “a man who
isn’t liable to be made a fool of by the woman he’s in love with would
make a very bad husband. Maybe he’d remain a bachelor. I don’t like to
upset Elise any more than you like to see her upset—that’s why I mean
to keep the upsets down to a good limit. It’s strain enough on a young
girl getting married; she don’t want to add not getting married on to
the top of it.”
Mr. Brett dismissed the subject and transferred his attention to the
bird bath.
“There—” he said, “now those sparrows have had all the bath they want,
but they sit on just the same: they’re going to prevent any of the other
birds having a dip—and they’ll do it too—unless I shy a stone at ’em.
They’re the most high-strung birds I know. Hand me over a round pebble
before you go, John.”
The controversy ended in Elise and Mr. Brett going to Claridge’s Hotel
for a flying visit. London never suited Mr. Brett, and on this occasion
it suited him less than usual. His long heavy-jawed face turned as grey
as his light summer suit; but it was a great convenience for dressmakers
and Hermione had been perfectly lovely about it, though she was afraid
she was too ill to see John.
The Bretts had a large private sitting-room in which their meals were
always served. Mr. Brett said he could never get over the feeling that
it was unfriendly not to know people in public dining-rooms and pay for
their food. It made him feel uncomfortable to think of their separate
bills.
John had come to dine after a long day in the City. The table was
beautifully set, and decorated with blue and purple sweet peas. He saw
with a slight feeling of surprise that it was laid for four. No one was
in the room when he entered, but after a few minutes the door opened
softly behind him, and he turned to greet an unknown guest.
A woman stood quite still in the open doorway. A long white, chiffon
velvet cloak hung over her shoulders and a white gauze wrap framed her
head and face—out of its softness shone the hard glitter of diamonds.
Her eyes were fixed on John. They were luminous grey eyes with
exquisitely chiselled eyelids, and very long fair lashes.
Her features were cut as clear as the features on a coin; she had no
colour in her face except for her lips, which were the deepest carmine.
They looked as if they were painted, but they were not painted. Hermione
sometimes bit her lips before she came into a room, but she never used
artificial aids, unless they looked perfectly natural.
As she glided forward into the room, her gauze wrap fell on to her
shoulders, and revealed a crown of thick fair hair, as vivid as a
sunbeam. She held out both her hands, and murmured softly:
“John, it _is_ John?”
John had an absurd moment of sheer panic. Who was this lovely and
perfectly strange woman who called him John?
He was a good young man, but for one awful moment he wondered if this
lady had any previous right to his Christian name?
She held his hands, and it appeared as if she might be intending to kiss
him. John looked as non-committal as only a man of his race and class
can look in a moment of danger. Hermione did not kiss him: she pressed
his hands, sighed deeply and sank gracefully into the easiest chair in
the room.
“To think I have not seen you till to-night,” she murmured. “I am
Hermione.”
John felt relieved, but guilty. He forgot that he had been twice turned
away from the Princess Girla’s door—and apologised.
Hermione smiled wistfully and forgivingly up at him.
“Oh, I know! I know!” she said, “I have been through it all. I have come
out the other side now! But I can make allowances for lovers. Isn’t it
all too wonderful! And now I have seen you I can be glad. My dear little
Elise! You won’t take her wholly away from me, will you?”
John murmured that he shouldn’t think of such a thing, and sought refuge
by looking at his boots. There was a peculiarly thrilling tone to
Hermione’s voice which made him feel as if he were in church having his
better feelings appealed to, and John always looked at his boots in an
emotional crisis.
“Let us be quite frank with each other,” Hermione said with great
gentleness.
“The word marriage is hateful to me. It has the sound of death in it.
Believe me, John—marriage can be as cruel as the grave.”
John cleared his throat and prayed that Elise might come in. He had no
idea that any one could speak so intimately to him in so short a time.
“Just at first,” said Hermione, “I faltered—Elise is dearer to me than
any other creature. I had hoped to spare her the bitterness of
experience. I did not want to see her as other women are—forgive my
speaking in French—_une femme initiée_. But now I have seen you I feel
a weight off my heart. You are a loyal, faithful Englishman—I think I
can trust that dear child to you, John—I think I can say with an easy
mind—‘Take my child—’”
Hermione’s voice quivered, but she kept her grave, controlled eyes on
John. John felt profoundly uncomfortable, but he was also deeply
touched. No one who listened to Hermione ever measured the sense of her
words—her low silvery voice entrapped them like a magic flute. John
forgot that Elise happened to be Mr. Brett’s daughter—and that as
Hermione had married very young and was considerably older than Elise,
she had, as a matter of fact, seen very little of her. It seemed to him
that he was receiving a sacred charge—and though he could not be
eloquent in reply, the quick responsive look he gave his future
sister-in-law was one of the finest tributes to her power which Hermione
had ever received.
Before she had time to fix this impression any deeper the door opened
again and Mr. Brett came in.
“Well, Hermione,” he said, without a change of countenance, “your
resurrections contradict the hymn—they don’t come off in the morning.”
Hermione said nothing: she waited until her father had walked the length
of the room towards them, then with a little movement of grace and
affection she threw herself into his arms.
“Dear, dear Papa,” she murmured.
There was an instant of complete unresponsiveness on her parent’s part
before Hermione with equal grace disengaged herself and retook the
easiest chair in the room.
“Dear Papa,” she murmured, “how terribly aged and different you look. I
must speak to darling Elise about it—these young people are perhaps a
little blind in their great happiness. Suffering gives one eyes!”
Hermione spoke perfect English and when she said Papa she laid the
stress on the last syllable.
“I must beg you not to worry your sister, Hermione,” said Mr. Brett
quietly. “If you think I look ill, I’d be obliged if you’d grieve in
secret. I don’t happen to be specially ill, so you don’t need to grieve
unless you want to.”
“I shall have to depend on John, then,” said Hermione, turning her
beautiful magnetic gaze upon her future brother-in-law. “He must tell me
everything—since I am exiled. I feel already as if I could depend on
John!”
Mr. Brett’s half closed eyes met his brilliant daughter’s. Something
passed between them as vivid and as antagonistic as the report of a
pistol, but there was no explosion.
They looked at each other until Elise, flushed with excitement, came in
to greet them. She gave a little cry of joy as she caught sight of her
sister.
“How too perfectly sweet of you, Hermione!” she cried. “I hardly dared
hope you’d come. I told them to set for you, but I was so afraid you’d
be too sick—I didn’t even warn John!”
Hermione closed the sentence with a kiss.
“Why, honey,” she said, “did you suppose I wouldn’t just be _alive_ to
please you?”
Hermione said this beautifully, with an exquisite maternal gentleness
which hung about her like a sunny atmosphere.
John was unable to say afterwards what Hermione did with the situation,
but she certainly transformed rather an awkward little family dinner
party into a successful pageant.
All her challenges were soft as gossamer, but they made John sit up. He
felt himself growing brilliant to meet them. He said some really neat
things about the war, sound, sensible things with a flavour to them. He
revised the Cabinet and explained the subtle points of allied diplomacy.
He saw that Elise was proud of him.
Elise was transformed also; she had more colour in her, and more life,
and she was, strangely enough, more American. She sat up, very straight
and slim, with a little triumphant flush on her cheeks. Her pink pearls
were twisted round her throat and she wore a rest gown of pink and
silver brocade. Nothing ever made Elise feel so sure of herself as the
sight of those she loved appearing to their advantage.
Hermione leaned back in her easy chair, and every now and then the light
caught the diamonds round her throat and in her hair; but they were the
only things that shone about her.
A less clever woman than Hermione might have tried to impress John with
her own personality and she would have failed. John was too deeply in
love to notice any personality that did not contribute to the credit of
his beloved.
Mr. Brett sat in impenetrable silence. He poured out their wine and
handed cigarettes, and he ate with his usual indifference the small and
regulated dishes which kept him alive.
When Elise tried to make him talk (and even in her finest flights Elise
never forgot him) he responded to her with unvarying gentleness, but he
never started a subject, and neither illustration nor analysis escaped
him.
His silence made him look a little churlish, and Hermione added just the
least edge to his churlishness by the careful manner in which she
avoided rubbing it in. It was as if she silently conveyed to her
companions, “Just see how careful I am not to show him up! I could, you
know, by a turn of the wrist, make him look sulky, and even say
something to me which would sound downright rude. But I sha’n’t. I let
him off. He _is_ a bear with a sore head, but I won’t even let you know
how thoroughly I understand that the sore head is levelled solely at
me.”
The evening passed like a draught of southern wine. At last Hermione
rose slowly to her feet, holding on to the armchair with her white,
emaciated hand. John’s eyes fell on it, and he realised with a shock of
pity how thin Hermione was, and, as his eyes met hers, how suffering.
She smiled an heroic, unflinching smile back at him.
“Honey,” she said to Elise, “it’s time your little old sister ran away.”
In an instant Elise was by her side; the two sisters left the room with
their arms round each other’s waists. John held the door open for them
to pass. He was about to accompany them to see if he could help
Hermione, when Mr. Brett called him back.
“Well?” said Mr. Brett. He lifted a grey face in which the humour seemed
curiously overlaid by pain. “Well, John Sterling,” he said, “you’ve seen
Hermione. What do you make of her?”
John hesitated. Mr. Brett’s face was in shadow, he did not notice that
Mr. Brett looked ill, because that was the way he usually looked. People
were so accustomed to seeing Mr. Brett ill that they sometimes thought
he must be accustomed to the sensation.
“Surely,” John said at last a little uncomfortably, “she’s very fond of
her sister?”
“No she ain’t,” said Mr. Brett positively, “she’s only fond of one
person on God’s earth, and that person is Hermione; and she’s just a
little mite, not as much as I should like, afraid of me.”
Elise re-entered, exultant with happiness. She did not notice her
father, who was half concealed by a heavy curtain. She threw her arms
around her lover’s neck.
“Oh, John,” she cried breathlessly, “isn’t Hermione perfect? Isn’t she
just too sweet? She says you’re the _only_ man in the world she could
have trusted me with.”
“God help you John,” said Mr. Brett under his breath. Neither of them
heard him. He got up softly and crept out of the room.