"I've brought them back."
Maggy had come to restore the borrowed jewels to Chalfont. It was late
afternoon of the following day. She was dressed in gray with touches of
black, and her face wore a subdued expression. Woolf had left for the
Continent by the morning boat train.
"You were a brick to lend them," she proceeded. "Didn't you think Lexie
was awfully good?"
"Very good indeed," he said.
"She isn't a bit excited. Funny, isn't it? She used to be so keen
once. Now I don't think she'd mind a bit if she left the stage."
"Would you?"
"I? I can't imagine myself anywhere else. This time twenty years, if
Maggy Delamere's still alive, she'll be capering about in the chorus
somewhere, I expect. I hope I shall be dead though," she added
pessimistically.
"What is the matter with you to-day?" asked Chalfont.
"Blue devils. Mr. Woolf's away. He won't be back for three weeks.
He's on his honeymoon."
Chalfont stared at her. For a moment he thought she was speaking
seriously. He could not understand her calm acceptance of such a fact.
Then Maggy laughed.
"He's gone to honeymoon places, I mean. On business. He couldn't take
me." She changed the subject quickly. "Have you ever been to see
Lexie?"
"No," he replied. "I wasn't sure she would like me to."
"Perhaps she wouldn't. It's not much of a place where she lives."
"But I want you to give her a message, if you will."
"Of course. What is it?"
"An invitation. It's for you too, if you will accept it. But perhaps
you've made arrangements already--for Christmas, I mean."
Maggy shook her head. Her Christmas would have to be spent alone in her
flat. It did not occur to her that Chalfont was making her an
alternative proposition.
"In that case I shall be very glad if you and Miss Hersey will spend it
with me at Purton Towers."
Maggy started. Lexie and she and he all together at Christmas time! At
Purton Towers!
"Is that your country-house?" she faltered.
"Yes. You'll come? We should be rather quiet because--"
"Because of poor Mrs. Lambert," she interjected with quick
understanding. "Was--was she there with you last year?"
"No, she would never come."
Maggy was thinking.
"I expect Lexie would love to go," she cogitated. "And so should I.
But I ought to stop at the flat.... Would it be very wrong if I didn't?
He--Fred--is very strict about me. I wish I'd asked him...."
Chalfont did not attempt persuasion.
"All right," she said suddenly. "I'll come. It would be a shame to
prevent Lexie having a good time. She wouldn't come without me. It
will be simply lovely!"
"I'll motor you both down on Christmas Eve and bring you back in time
for the theater on Boxing night. I think you'll like the old place."
"Shall I? What makes you think so?"
"For one thing because of the cedars on the lawn."
"Like in my dream? Oh, ripping!"
"And there is the home-farm. You like animals."
Maggy's face lighted up. "Will there be lambs and calves and fat
squealy little pigs?"
"Hardly at this time of year," answered Chalfont, amused. "You'll have
to come in the spring again to see them."
"I don't think I could resist it, if you invited us. May I ask you
something?"
"Anything you like. Fire away."
"It's this," she said with considerable hesitation. "I would love to
spend a _real_ Christmas Day. Would you mind? One goes to church,
doesn't one? And I would like people not to know we were actresses. I
would like--if you could manage it--to have a Christmas tree. Couldn't
you ask some village children--a lot of them? Children are always in
season even when lambs and calves aren't. That's one blessing."
"I think that could be managed. Do you like children?" he asked,
surprised at her earnestness.
"Like them? It's the one part of Heaven that sounds most attractive.
You know where it says in the Bible: 'Suffer little children ... and of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven,' and then a lot more toward the end about
gold and jasper and glassy seas and streets of gold. I expect there
must be a nursery for the children who died young. I'd like to squeeze
in with the little angels!"
"You funny child!"
"I'm not a child. It's only my silly way of talking. I'm a woman.
Why, this"--she held up her little finger--"this knows more about love
and pain and everything else than--Lexie's whole body. Now I must be
off. I do talk to you. What makes me? I only meant to stop a minute."
She was wrought up at the prospect of spending Christmas--a real country
Christmas--under such delightful conditions as she had outlined and
Chalfont had tacitly acquiesced in. Too impatient to wait until evening
to impart the joyful news to Alexandra she made for Sidey Street as fast
as a taxicab could take her. There, breathlessly she told her news.
"How nice of him!" declared Alexandra. "Did you meet him accidentally,
or how?"
"How," answered Maggy, and colored violently under Alexandra's clear and
searching eyes. "I had to go to his house--on business," she floundered,
giving herself away.
Alexandra could not help laughing.
"Oh, Maggy! Then the diamonds I wore last night were his!"
"Nothing wrong with them, was there?"
"No, but--but you must be very friendly with him. Have you seen him a
lot since he came back?"
"When I went to borrow them and again to-day when I took them back,"
replied Maggy, regaining her self-possession.
"I wonder what he thinks of you!"
"Oh, just mad," said Maggy.
In a week's time it would be Christmas. The joys of anticipation helped
her to endure Woolf's absence. She knew that her visit to Purton Towers
would incense him, but she did not intend going it on that account. She
would not be doing Woolf or herself any wrong in going. When he
returned she would be quite honest and tell him all about it. Meanwhile
she wrote to Chalfont.
"_Dear Lord Chalfont:_
"Lexie will love to come. Me too. But would you mind very much if I
brought Mrs. Slightly and Mr. Onions?
"Yours sincerely,
"MAGGY DELAMERE."
Her large and sprawly handwriting covered the sheet. Had it not been
for the afterthought in the form of a postscript which she added
overleaf, Chalfont might have remained in ignorance of the identity of
the two additional guests. It ran thus:
"I forgot you don't know them. Mrs. Slightly could sleep anywhere,
being a cat. Mr. Onions is my dog and has a basket in my room. At any
other time of the year I would not mind leaving them in charge of the
porter at the flats but at Christmas everybody loses their heads and
they might not get fed. They are not well bred but they have good
manners."
Chalfont did not mind in the least. If Maggy had wanted in addition to
bring a tame goat he would have welcomed it. All her eccentricities
amused him. Her solicitude for her two pets showed her thoughtfulness
and goodness of heart. So, when the day arrived, Mrs. Slightly traveled
to Purton Towers in a well-ventilated hat box, while Onions, wildly
excited but restrained by a brand-new leather leash, sat between Maggy
and Alexandra in the back of the car.
It was a brilliant day, one of those sunny, windless days that belies
the time of year. The air was crisp rather than cold, and the two
girls, wrapped in their furs and a capacious rug, reveled in the swift
rush of the open car infinitely more than if they had been driving in a
closed one. Maggy was in prodigious spirits. Chalfont, driving with his
man beside him, turned occasionally to watch her, regretting that he was
unable to catch a word of her animated talk.
"Isn't life a funny thing, Onions dear," she was bubbling rather than
saying. "Six months ago you were a gagaboo little horror eating your
namesakes out of a dustbin, and here you are being driven by a real live
lord. The beauty of it is you don't know it and wouldn't care if you
did. That's one of the reasons why I love you, Onions. You don't mind me
being an abandoned female. You don't even know that I am one. That's
why King Edward was so fond of his Caesar. Caesar didn't love him
because he was a king but because he was a man. He might have been a
coal-heaver for all Caesar cared. You little wog-wogs don't know
anything about titles or the marriage service, but you can love, honor
and obey better than we can, till death makes us howl and bury you."
Onions, straining at his lead, leapt up and tried to snatch a mouthful
of her motor-veil.
"Onions, if I were rich I would try to make a heaven on earth for all
the doggies in the world. I'd look for all the hungry ones and all the
ugly ones and the beaten ones and the ones whose mothers sat on them and
made them funny shapes. You should all have lovely patent kennels full
of the best quality straw--heaps of it to wiggle around in; and exciting
food, bones and the horrible things from insides that you like so much,
and sulphur when you weren't looking, to keep you well and make your
coats shine. And you should all run about wherever you pleased, chasing
bunny-rabbits and mice and the other sniffy things that make dogs so
excited. And there should be a special place all wired round for the
slow doggies, all full of rabbits so that they couldn't get away. It
wouldn't be cruel, because after a time you'd make friends with the
bunnies and play hide and seek with them. Oh, what a lovely world we
could make it if we had it all to ourselves. Lexie, do look at Onion's
face. He's _laughing_!"
Alexandra laughed too.
"How you do lose your head and your heart to anything you love, Maggy,"
she said.
Maggy gave her one of her odd looks.
"Isn't it a way women have?" she retorted.