Diamonds for Alexandra had been no random idea of Maggy's. The question
of how to provide them, or at least some jewelry for her to wear on the
great occasion, continued to exercise her mind. She woke up full of it
the next morning. If they were to be obtained, though only for one
night, De Freyne would be wonderfully and awfully impressed. And Maggy
was right. De Freyne's estimate of a girl was largely influenced by the
intrinsic value of what she carried upon her person.
Woolf could be of no help in this matter. He very seldom cared to
discuss Alexandra at all, and considering that he had not shown any
inclination to supply Maggy herself with any jewelry worth mentioning he
was hardly likely to do more for her friend.
Then a daring thought came into her head. Alexandra had told her that
Lord Chalfont was back in London. Couldn't he do something? Ever a
slave to the enthusiasm of the moment, she looked up Chalfont's address
in the telephone index and then drove there. Her heart went into her
mouth as she thought of what Woolf would say if he knew where she was
bound for. But that did not stop her. She was one of Nature's
gamblers, and the element of danger in the undertaking gave her a
certain relish for it.
Chalfont was just going to sit down to his breakfast--it was only
half-past nine--when she was announced. The earliness of her visit
surprised him, but he was none the less pleased to see her. Many times
during his absence he had recalled her pretty face, her extraordinary
gift of honest frankness, and above all the sympathetic womanliness she
had shown at their last meeting.
"I expect you think I'm mad coming to see you so early in the morning,"
she began.
"I'm glad to see you at any time," he said. "Have you had breakfast?"
"I snatched it. I wanted to catch you in, and I didn't want my Fred to
know. He wouldn't like me to be here. Of course, I shan't tell him,
because I've come in a good cause. Can you lend me some diamonds?"
He was a little staggered by the request. He would have been prepared
to swear that Maggy was not of the grasping sort, and yet here she was,
admittedly against the regulations, blandly asking him for diamonds at
half-past nine in the morning. He laughed.
"Look here, I haven't had breakfast yet. It's ready. Suppose you have
it with me and tell me why you want them."
"May I? I should love it."
He rang the bell, and his man quickly laid another place at the table.
"Sole, omelette, kidneys?" inquired Chalfont. "You need not wait,
Mitchell."
"Omelette, please," said Maggy, taking the seat he offered her before
the tea and coffee equipage. "Coffee for you? And sugar?"
"Thanks."
He came back from the sideboard where he had gone to the
electrically-heated stand, smiled as he served her, and took the cup she
handed him.
"Do you know," he said, taking his seat, "I seem to have the feeling
that we've breakfasted before."
"So have I," she rejoined. "I like it."
"Your hat spoils the illusion, though."
"How?"
"Of a woman in the house."
She unpinned it and tossed it on to a chair. The reluctance that had
made her retain it that day so many months ago when she had lunched for
the first time with Woolf was quite absent now.
"Well, what about the diamonds?" asked Chalfont.
"They're not for me. I want them for Lexie. But it must be a secret.
She'd shake me if she knew. She's back again at the Pall Mall now."
"I wanted to ask you about her. What is she doing there?"
"I'll tell you all from the beginning," said Maggy. "This omelette's
splendid. It was through her legacy. The furs and the dresses poor
Mrs. Lambert left her."
Chalfont nodded.
"Well, Lexie had a hard time for weeks. She couldn't get an engagement
anywhere. So when the furs came she togged herself out in them and went
and saw De Freyne. He took her on again because he thought she'd got
rich quick, and that there was a man in it. He was awfully puzzled.
Instead of asking her he tried to pump me, and I found myself telling
stories." Her face screwed up funnily. "Oh, I let him think! He
fancies it's a royalty--a prince--who's running Lexie, and he's given
her a part and a song on the strength of it. It goes in three days from
now. It's an awfully big thing for her. I've persuaded her not to
split--not to let on that her prince is all a fairy story. As I put it
to her: she can't come to much harm with an _imaginary_ man. Now, on the
night she'll look so bare."
"Bare?" echoed Chalfont.
"Bare of jewelry, I mean."
"Oh, I see!"
"Her dress is white and pink and turquoise, a duck of a thing. But she
won't have a single ornament to wear; so if De Freyne is to go on
believing what I told him about the prince she ought to have some.
Diamonds for choice. It doesn't matter about afterwards. He'll have
seen them once and think she's put them away for safety. Now that's
where you can help. If you'll lend them I'll make her wear them. You
_have_ got some diamonds, haven't you?" she asked anxiously.
"Yes, in the bank. Of course I'll lend you some," said Chalfont
readily. "I'll telephone through if you like and tell the bank to send
them along. How will that do?"
"Splendid! That is good of you."
"Not at all. I'm very glad to be able to help Miss Hersey. Besides, I
wouldn't for worlds spoil the practical joke you've played on De
Freyne." He laughed. "It's one of the best things I ever heard of."
"And you won't let on to Lexie?"
"Not a word. It shall be our secret."
"I _knew_ I could count on you," said Maggy confidently.
Chalfont looked at his watch. It was ten now, and the bank would be
open, so he went to the telephone and gave the necessary instructions.
"Where have you been all this while?" Maggy asked him when he came back
to his seat. "I wondered whether you would take my advice and plump for
some wild place."
"As it happens it's just as well I didn't. You wouldn't be pouring out
coffee for me if I had gone to the Rockies or Central Africa," he
smiled. "I went for a commonplace cruise to Madeira and back instead."
"I'm glad you didn't, now.... Do you feel better--about things?"
He knew she was thinking of Mrs. Lambert, and liked her all the better
for her indefiniteness. It showed delicacy.
"I think so," he answered. "I have often recalled something you said
when we stood at the window of the little house in Albert Place: 'Life
goes on,' were the words. I'm going on with mine. I'm trying to make
the best of it."
"I like to hear that. Love isn't meant to mope over. It's the sort of
thing to remember with praise and thanksgiving when it's gone. When the
loved one's gone, I mean. When you come to think of it love's a curious
thing. It's like a very sharp two-edged sword. You handle it so
carelessly that it gives you scratches and cuts and wounds that are so
deep that even when they heal they throb for years afterwards. I wonder
how I should feel--if my love stopped. I think my life would stop too.
I shouldn't be brave enough to go on with things.... That doesn't fit
in very well with what I said just now about not moping, does it?"
Chalfont answered her with a question of his own.
"What is love like to you?"
"To me? A burning, fiery furnace. All great waves beating on me and
smashing me about."
"Isn't that passion?"
"I don't know. If it is it's like that stuff everybody's talking
about--radium. It gives off heat and loses none." She remained lost in
thought for a while. "Perhaps I should feel different if I
were--married.... I dream of it sometimes."
She was dreaming then. Chalfont saw it in her eyes. Her artlessness
seemed a wonderful thing to him.
"The odd thing is," she went on, "when I'm imagining that I forget all
about the man. It's like having a sort of marriage service all to
yourself."
"Tell me."
"Oh, it's silly.... I think of it to make me go to sleep instead of
counting silly sheep. It makes me float off as if I were on a lovely
cloud. First I hear the church bells ringing--quite loud, pealing; and
my heart goes thumpetty-thump because I'm going to be married, which I
shall never be in my life. It seems so important and grand. And then I
dress. That doesn't interest me very much; but I like the look of my
face through the white veil. It's misty, like a summer morning....
Then I'm in church--a great church, perhaps a cathedral, and as I go up
the aisle it's as if God is playing the organ, and I'm walking on all
His stars."
There was quite a wonderful look in her beautiful face. She seemed to
have forgotten Chalfont. He kept quite still waiting for her to go on.
"And then the service begins. I read it once. Parts of it I shall never
forget. In the church there are stacks of white flowers and lilies.
It's all so quiet and awful--only the clergyman's voice.... I feel
choking and I can't see because my eyes are full of tears.... There
_must_ be sacred love. I feel it all through me.... And when it's over
I'm crying. Sometimes if I'm not asleep I go on with the honeymoon. I
see fields and blue sky and a homey-looking house--soft red brick--with
a green lawn and cedar trees on it. Their branches stretch out to me
like loving arms. I see flowers everywhere. I think it's a sort of
farm, because there are cows and wondering-eyed calves with soft
slobbery noses and curly, wet, rough tongues; and lambs with baby faces
to make pets of; and clucking chickens and stupid broody hens. I'd be
so kind to them...." She drew a long breath. The dream was broken.
"Fred would say I'm dotty," she finished apologetically.
"Do you know," said Chalfont, "your thoughts are like dainty
butterflies."
"There's a maggot in my brain, I expect," was her dry rejoinder,
dispelling her romantic mood.
Mitchell came in to say that a messenger had arrived from the bank.
Chalfont excused himself and left the room. A minute or two later he
came back and took Maggy into another room. On one of its tables stood
two mahogany boxes. Unlocking them he lifted the lids and moved aside
for her to see.
"I think you'll find what you want here," he said.
The top tray of one of the boxes was studded with fine rings; the other
held necklaces and bracelets--diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls.
Underneath, when he removed the trays, Maggy's eyes opened wide at a
magnificent tiara and other gemmed ornaments.
"Do they _all_ belong to you?" she gasped.
"Yes, in a sense. They were my mother's. They have belonged to many a
Lady Chalfont in the past."
"Then if you marry they will belong to your wife?"
"If I marry."
A mischievous look came into Maggy's face.
"I don't suppose the future Lady Chalfont would like to see Miss Maggy
Delamere taking her pick," she said. She became serious again. "I
shan't sleep comfortably while I have them."
"I shall," smiled Chalfont. "Will you choose what you want?"
Maggy made a discreet choice, avoiding the tiara and the more splendid
objects much as she would have liked to see them on Alexandra. Chalfont
put the jewels into a smaller case for her. When he had done that he
handed her a little pendant, a dainty thing of small diamonds with a
ruby center.
"How do you like that?" he asked.
"It's sweet," said Maggy, holding it up for inspection.
"I would like you to keep it."
"I would like to keep it, too. But"--she handed it back--"I can't take
it."
"My dear child, why not? It's only a little thing."
She shook her head.
"Fred wouldn't like it. He wouldn't like my coming here either. I did
it because it was for somebody else. Thank you ever so much though. I
do think you're kind." She gave his hand a hearty grip.
Chalfont saw her to the door.
"Lexie appears on Thursday night. Don't forget. Come and clap," were
her farewell words.
She hailed a passing taxi. Chalfont helped her in. As it drove off she
waved to him, smiling. To Chalfont it seemed that her smile lit the
street.