The wicket gate opened and Eileen came towards her. The slim shoulders
drooped carelessly and there was a sullen look about the too voluptuous
mouth. Mrs. Ascott noticed for the first time that Eileen’s mouth was
like her mother’s. All the rest of her was, as Theodora put it, “pure,
unadulterated Trench” ... excepting, of course, the eyes, which were
amber or vicious yellow, according to her mood. Lary had his father’s
mouth; but had compromised with his mother on the question of eyes.
Lavinia abhorred compromises, albeit she had learned to accept them as
if they had been of her own choosing.
The girl stood in rebellious indecision, a few feet from the tomato
bed. Then, as if she had made up her mind to do the thing ... and take
the consequences, she came swiftly forward, put an arm around Judith’s
waist and kissed her full on the mouth. It had been so long since
any one had kissed her! The lips were speaking now, the tone low and
vibrant with pleading.
“You don’t mind, do you? If you only knew how I adore you! I have sat
at my window and watched you--and wondered about you--and wanted to
kiss you, till my mouth ached.”
A thrill went through the woman’s usually tranquil body. Here was
passion, susceptibility, imagination. She had not dreamed of such
intensity in a girl so young. And this was the girl Larimore Trench had
begged her to influence, to mould into some shape of his choosing--a
shape that would be utterly displeasing to her mother.
“Can you come into the house with me? It’s only a little after eight.
You won’t be late for chapel if you start at half-past.”
“I’m in no hurry. Hal’s coming by for me with the car. He’ll be on the
campus five minutes before he started, if our old moth-eaten policeman
happens to be looking the other way. I framed up the best looking
excuse for a morning call ... and now I don’t need it. You invited me
in--just like that! It’s always the way. If I have my gun loaded, there
isn’t any bear.”
“Did you think you needed a pretext?”
“I couldn’t be sure. And with you ... it’s too important to take
chances. I’ve been feeling my way, ever since you came. I can’t go
dancing in, as Theo does. She is like mamma. You simply can’t snub that
kid.”
The pretext was the revelation of the mystery-house across the way. Hal
had told her all about it, after they left Ina and Kitten and their
escorts. The owner of the carved dragon was Hal’s sister, Adelaide
Nims. There had been a former marriage, about the time of Hal’s birth,
a most unsavoury affair. Adelaide was seventeen at the time, and the
reluctant husband was the divorced partner of one of Henry Marksley’s
affinities. The Marksleys, père and mère, had been separated three
times. Eileen and Hal agreed that it was indecent for people who
despised each other to live together. Still, if his parents had not
made up that last time, there would have been no Hal. This would have
been calamity for Eileen.
The present Mrs. Nims was little known in Springdale, having lived
abroad for almost twenty years. Her first husband, in Eileen’s piquant
phrase, “had chucked her” after a few months--as a man usually does
when he is dragooned into a distasteful marriage. There had been other
marriages, “without benefit of clergy,” the details of which were
suppressed in Springdale. Indeed coming to light only in connection
with a divorce or two wherein Adelaide had figured as the reprehensible
other woman. She had hair like polished mahogany and melting brown
eyes, a skin like the petals of a Victoria Regia, at dawn of the
morning after the lily’s opening, before the sun has tinged its creamy
white with the faint rose that is destined to run the colour gamut to
rich purplish red. She and Syd Schubert vied with each other in the
number of instruments they could play; but she had made her great
success with the ’cello, an instrument whose playing revealed to the
best possible advantage the slim sensual grace of her body.
It was in a London music hall that Reginald Nims, younger son of a
peer, had fallen beneath the weight of her manifold charms and had
married her--to the dismay of his family. Eileen knew what she looked
like. Not from Hal’s description, but because Springdale had seen her
portrait. Just before she and her husband left England for China, they
had sent it home for safe keeping ... the magnificent portrait that
Sargent had painted. Mrs. Henderson gave a talk on it, in the reading
room of the college library. Red hair, coppery in the high lights,
eyes that would turn an anchorite from the path of duty, skin texture
that was unsurpassed in the far reach of Sargent’s marvellous texture
painting, a chiffon gown that reminded you of a cloud of flame-shot
smoke, and a bit of still-life that was definitely, though not
insistently, turquoise.
“Mrs. Henderson said that when she read a description of the picture,
she supposed it was going to look like a Henner; but it was nothing
of the sort. I had to go on the Q. T. to hear her talk. Of course you
know, mamma belongs to the Art Study Club; but she was scandalized at
Mrs. Henderson getting up there and talking about Adelaide Marksley.
Lary tried to make her see that it was Sargent ... but what’s the use?
You can’t get that kind of an idea into my mother’s head.”
The Browning Club had long since gone the way of Browning. But Mrs.
Henderson, after the death of her husband, was constrained to seek new
means of holding her grip on the social and intellectual leadership
of the town. Fortunately Mrs. Clarkson, wife of the new Dean, was not
aggressive. She was glad to be enrolled, along with Mrs. David Trench,
as a member of the Art Study Club. Being a late comer in the town, she
knew no reason why she should withdraw her moral support from the club,
after its shocking display of the Sargent picture.
“But I hope the poor girl is at last happily married,” Mrs. Ascott
hastened to say. She wondered if Eileen was always quite fair to her
mother.
“That’s just what she isn’t. And thereby hangs the tale of their coming
here to live for a couple of years. Hal said his father wanted to rent
Vine Cottage for them--and in that case they wouldn’t have brought
their furniture. But your Mr. Ramsay got ahead of him. I’m glad he
did. But mamma would have turned them out, lease or no lease, if she
ever got her eyes on an English paper published in Hong Kong, that Hal
showed me, last night. It was the rippingest account you ever read, of
Adelaide’s elopement with a member of the military band. It started in
a sort of musical flirtation ... and ended in a miserable little hotel
in Fu Chau. The writer said your sympathy would be with Mrs. Nims if
you looked at the shape of Reginald Nims, and remembered that his wife
was fond of dancing. Hal doesn’t know what that means--because he never
saw his brother-in-law. He must be either a cripple or fat. It won’t be
long till we know. They sail from Honolulu to-morrow.”
“Then she’s reconciled to her husband?”
“Had to be! She’s trying to make the best of a bad mess. The musician
soured on his bargain....” The amber eyes flamed yellow. “Left her in
the room at the hotel, and gave her husband the key. How did he know
Nims wouldn’t kill her? I should think he would--if he had any spirit.
They’re coming here till the scandal blows over and they can go back to
London. Adelaide loathes China, and adores England. Hal said he guessed
that Nims couldn’t bear to part with a wife who had red hair, even if
he had to do the reversed Mormon stunt once in a while.”
Mrs. Ascott experienced a swift revulsion--not at the story Eileen was
telling. She had heard many such. But in the bald discussion of sex
encounters there lurked a definite element of danger. For another, and
less serious reason, Hal Marksley ought not to be telling this story in
Springdale, where his sister expected to live. But Eileen hastened to
explain that she alone was in the secret, and she ... “was part of the
family.”
“Really, my dear? I hadn’t suspected.”
“Yes, Lady Judith, and if you’ll let me, I’m coming back after school
to tell you what I actually came to tell you this morning. May I? I’ll
have to chase home and get my books. Hal’s honking for me, this minute.”