The next morning, by a strange circumstance, which did not immediately
unfold its inner meaning, three bad men met in the front verandah of the
Royal.
The order of their coming was thus: Bramham dropped in at about eleven
o'clock to discover Abinger sitting in the verandah with a drink at his
elbow--
"And a smile on the face of the tiger."
That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed into Bramham's
head, as Abinger grinned upon him.
"What do _you_ want?" was the latter's affable greeting, and Bramham
answered fearlessly:
"Oh, just a gin-and-bitters! It's getting somewhere about lunch-time,
isn't it?"
Abinger refrained from inquiring why the Royal should be patronised for
gin-and-bitters, when the Club was just across the road from Bramham's
office: he merely continued to grin. The next arrival was Carson. But he
saw them before they saw him, so it was for him to play tiger. He
saluted them blandly.
"Hullo! you fellows! Waiting to see Nickals, too?"
This was the first information the other two had of the presence of
Nickals in the hotel; but Abinger gravely stated that his case was a
desire to see that gentleman. Bramham repeated his gin-and-bitters tale.
They sat for a quarter of an hour, abusing the weather, the market, and
the country, and Carson then said he should go and see if he could find
Nickals in his room. The others thought they would accompany him. It
appeared that Nickals, hitherto a simple honest fellow, had suddenly
grown in importance and magnetic personality.
They did not, like sane men, inquire at the office, which was just
inside the hall door, but strolled instead through the vestibules into
the palm-garden, and from there to Ulundi Square, having passed the
drawing-room windows and looked in, in case Nickals might be playing the
piano or resting on the sofa, as Abinger facetiously remarked.
Eventually they stopped a strolling waiter and asked if Nickals was in.
The waiter went away to see, and the three sat in the Square until he
returned with the information that Mr. Nickals had gone to the Berea and
would not be back before four o'clock. This was conclusive. They
searched each other's faces for any reasonable excuse for further
loitering; finally, Abinger said _he_ would now take a gin-and-bitters.
Carson thought he would like a smoke. The chairs are easy and
comfortable in Ulundi Square, and there are newspapers.
They spent another peaceful twenty minutes. Too peaceful. No one came or
went, but an ample-breasted concert soprano, who was touring the country
and compiling a fortune with a voice that had long ceased to interest
English audiences; a crumpled-looking lady journalist, with her nose in
a note-book and her hat on one ear, and a middle-aged American tourist,
with a matron as alluringly veiled as the wife of a Caliph, but who
unfortunately did not remain veiled.
_Ennui_ engulfed the trio. At last they departed in exasperation--no one
having once mentioned his real reason for being there. Carson and
Abinger went into the Club, Bramham into his office, promising to join
them in a short time for lunch. As he passed through an outer office
lined with desks and busy clerks, his secretary followed, to inform him
in a discreet voice that a note had come for him by one of the Royal
_boys_. Bramham, forgetting that he was over twenty-five on Isandhlwana
day nineteen years before, sprinted into his private room in amazing
style. On his desk was a letter addressed in the writing of Rosalind
Chard.
"I had a premonition, by Jove!" he exclaimed excitedly, and tore it
open. It was brief.
"I am staying at the Royal. Could you call on me some time to-day? I
should be delighted if you would lunch with me. It will be charming to
see you again."
Bramham stared at the letter for several minutes, then seized his hat
and rang the bell.
"Call Mr. Merritt," was his order, and the secretary reappeared.
"Merritt, I am going out again at once. If Mr. Carson or Mr.
Abinger send over for me from the Club, _I'm engaged. Very
important business--here._ Shall probably see them later in the
afternoon--understand?"
"Certainly, sir," said the discreet Merritt, and withdrew.
Arrived at the Royal once more, Bramham this time addressed himself to
the inquiry office like an honest man, and was presently informed that
Miss Chard would see him in her private sitting-room. His mental
eyebrows went up, but he decorously followed the slim and sad-eyed
coolie attendant.
In a room redeemed from "hoteliness" by a few original touches, fragrant
with violets and sprays of mimosa, he found a girl waiting for him, whom
for a moment he scarcely recognised. It was the first time he had seen
Rosalind Chard in any but the simplest clothes, and he at first supposed
the difference in her attributable to her dress. She wore a beautiful
gown of lilac-coloured crepe, with silken oriental embroiderings
scrolled upon it, and a big lilac-wreathed hat--a picture of well-bred,
perfectly-dressed dewy womanhood, with the faint and fascinating stamp
of personality on every tiniest detail of her. She stood in the middle
of the room and held out a slim, bare hand to Bramham, and he took it,
staring at her and it. He was relieved to see that it was not jewelled.
"I can't believe my eyes," he said. "It is the most amazing thing that
ever happened--to see you!"
"Why?" she asked softly, looking him in the eyes.
"I thought you were in England fighting your way along the road to
Fame----"
"I don't care about Fame any more, Charlie."
"Don't care for Fame! Why, you were crazy after it!"
"Crazy--yes, that is the right word. Now I am sane. You have had my hand
quite a long time----"
He did not release it, however, only held it tighter.
"I'm knocked right off my mental reservation. I don't know what I'm
doing. You shouldn't stand and smile at me like that. What's the matter
with you, Rosalind? You don't look happy!"
His last words were a surprise to himself, for until he uttered them he
had not clearly realised that in spite of her radiant beauty and her
perfect clothes there was a haunting enigmatic sadness about her. And as
once before, he fancied it was her smile that made her so
tragic-looking. Suddenly it seemed to him that he heard a little bell
tolling somewhere. He gave a glance round the room, but his eyes
returned to her.
"What has happened to you?" he asked, in a low voice.
"My son is dead," she said, and she still smiled that bright, tragic
smile, and looked at him with dry, beautiful eyes, that were too tired
to weep. His were the eyes that filled with tears. He knew that he was
in the presence of grief too deep for words. The hand that he awkwardly
brushed across his face was his salute to sorrow.
"Thank you," her voice was a little dreary wind; "thank you, kindest of
all friends." She moved away from him then in a vague, aimless fashion,
went to a bowl of violets and smelled them, and looked up at a strange
blue picture on the wall, the like of which he had never seen in an
hotel and could not believe to be part of the furnishing of the Royal.
It was, indeed, _Hope_ sitting at the top of the world playing on her
brave one string; but Bramham had never seen Watts's picture before.
While she still stood there she spoke to him.
"Don't ever speak of it again, will you?... I can't ... I am not
able..."
"Of course not.... No, all right ... I won't," he hastily and earnestly
assured her.
He wondered if she knew of Carson's presence in Durban. It was strange
that they had had no sight of her that morning. He would have given much
to have seen her meet Carson face to face unexpectedly.
"Were you in this morning?" he presently asked. "I was about the hotel
for an hour or so with two friends--Carson and Luce Abinger. We might so
easily have run across you----"
Her face when she turned told him nothing.
"I spent the greater part of the morning sitting under the palms facing
the bay, talking to Mrs. Portal--but I left a message where I was to be
found in case you called."
"Mrs. Portal! I didn't know you knew her."
"Yes; she and I met when I was in Durban, and became friends. She
happened to be lunching here yesterday when I arrived, and she came up
and spoke to me. You can imagine what it meant to have someone welcoming
me as she did, after long exile from my own land--but, if you know her
at all, you know how kind and lovely her ways are."
"Yes, indeed," Bramham heartily agreed. "She is altogether charming."
All the same, he was astonished. Mrs. Portal was charming, but she stood
for orthodoxy, and the girl before him was mysteriously unorthodox--to
say the least of it.
"I am dining with her to-night to meet her great friend, Mrs. Capron,"
continued Poppy, eyeing him gravely.
"Then you ought to be careful," he blurted out; "for you are dining with
the two most precise and conventional women in the place"--here he
perceived himself to be blundering--"but I may also say the most
delightful," he added hastily.
"Ah! and why shouldn't I?" she queried softly, but her tone brought a
slight flush to Bramham's cheek.
"Oh, I don't know," he stammered. "No reason at all, I imagine."
"On the contrary," she said quietly, "you imagine every reason."
Bramham scrambled out of his tight corner as best he might.
"At any rate," he made haste to say, "I am delighted that you have a
woman friend who has it in her power to make things as pleasant and
interesting as they can be in a place like this."
"Thank you," she said; "and, dear friend--you need not be anxious for
me. I only confess where I am sure of absolution and the secrecy of the
confessional--never to women."
Bramham, first pleased, then annoyed, then sulky over this piece of
information, made no immediate response, and a waiter appearing at the
moment to inquire whether they would take lunch, the matter dropped. He
followed in the wake of her charming lilac gown, through tessellated
squares and palm-gardens, with the glow of personal satisfaction every
right-minded man feels in accompanying the prettiest and best turned-out
woman in the place.
When they were seated at the pleasantest corner of the room, and she had
ordered without fuss an excellently dainty lunch, Bramham's desire being
to sit with his elbows on the table and dip into the depths of lilac
eyes lashed with black above two faintly-tinted cheek-bones, he reverted
to his sulky demeanour. But a scarlet mouth was smiling at him
whimsically.
"Don't let us be cross! Everything is for the best in the best of all
possible worlds, you know; and you are the best of all possible
confessors. There is nothing I can hide from you. I am even going to
tell you where I got my pretty clothes from, and the money to be
careering about the world and staying at the Royal--I know you are
consumed with apprehension on these two points."
She smiled at him with such comradeship that he could not sulk any
longer.
"Well, you know the last time I saw you, you were in hard-luck street,
at a guinea a week, and too proud to use a friend's purse. I suppose you
have been getting on?"
"You suppose rightly: I have _got_ on. I have three plays running at
London theatres, two novels selling well, and a book of poems in its
tenth edition--not bad for poems, you know."
It was a day of surprises for Bramham, and it should be excused in him
that he sat for three minutes with his mouth open.
"You!... You!... why, I've never even heard of you!" he cried,
mortified, astonished, and it must be confessed, slightly unbelieving.
"But perhaps you have heard of _Eve Destiny_? Here are a pile of
letters and things from my managers and publishers. I want you to look
over them, and advise me, will you, about money and things ... I'm most
frightfully unpractical and extravagant.... I can see that I shall very
soon be poor again unless someone advises me and puts me on the right
road. And I don't want to be poor again, Charlie. Poverty hurts ... it
is like the sun, it shows up all the dark corners--in one's nature. If I
can only arrange my affairs so as to have about a hundred a year to live
on, I shall be satisfied."
"A hundred a year!" Bramham had been skimming through her papers with
his business eye, which fortunately for his feminine acquaintances was a
very different organ to his pleasure eye. All his instincts were
outraged at this careless view of what was evidently a splendid working
concern.
"A hundred a year! Why, if you go on like this you'll be more likely to
haul in ten thousand a year."
"Ah! but I'm not going on," she interpolated calmly. "I don't mean to
work any more."
"Not work any more? Why? Are you panned?... dried up ... fizzled out?"
"Not at all," she laughed. "I have as much fizzle as ever ... I don't
want to work any more--that's all. I'm tired ... and there is nothing to
work for."
"But since when did you begin to feel like that?"
"Oh, since a long time ... I haven't worked for ages ... I've been
buying frocks in Paris, and sitting in the sunshine at Cannes, and
looking over the side of a yacht at the blue Mediterranean, and just
spending, spending ... but there is not much in _that_, Charlie ...
there's not much in anything if your world is empty." Her voice broke
off strangely, but when he looked at her the tragic smile was back on
her mouth again. He knew now why she did it--it was to keep herself
from wailing like a banshee! An interval here occurred, monopolised
entirely by the waiter--a coolie, slim, snowily-draped, and regretful as
are all coolie-waiters.
It was Bramham who again broached the subject of Carson. He could not
help himself--these two people were dear to him; and, besides, he was
eaten up with curiosity.
"If you go to the Portals you will meet Eve Carson. He is _persona
grata_ there."
"I know; Mrs. Portal said to me, amongst other things, 'You must meet
our great friend, Sir Evelyn Carson.' She did not mention his wife,
however."
"His wife----?"
"It will be interesting to meet his wife," she said tranquilly. Bramham
gazed at her. She was carefully dissecting the pink part of a Neapolitan
ice from its white foundation.
"Yes, I should think it would be--when he gets one. I was asking him
only last night why he didn't marry, and he said----"
"He would be sure to say something arresting," said Poppy, but she had
grown pale as death. Her eyes waited upon Bramham's lips.
"He said, first, that he was not wealthy enough--a paltry reason.
Secondly, well, I can't quite repeat it, but something to the effect
that the girl of his dreams wouldn't materialise."
There was a long silence. She sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes
veiled. The colour of life came slowly back to her face, but she was
racked and shadowy-looking. Compassion filled Charles Bramham.
"I suppose you heard that May Mappin tale? All rot. She's a foolish
little Durban girl, left with a large fortune. He has never thought
twice about her, but she has always persisted in making a fool of
herself. It is a common story here that she cabled home reports of
their engagement and marriage. Poor devil! I suppose she can't help
herself ... but never mind her.... You, Rosalind! I can't pretend to
understand you ... the mystery is too deep for me to probe. But I
believe, that if last night I could have broken my promise to you----"
"Never! Never!" she cried fiercely. "I should curse you for ever ...
I.... And so he is not married?" she said in an ordinary voice.
"No, nor ever will be, till he finds the woman of his dreams, according
to his own tale."
Suddenly she rose from her chair.
"Good-bye ... I must go now ... I want to be alone ... I want rest ... I
must think. Forgive me for leaving you like this--" She went away, down
the long, well-filled room, and every feminine eye raked her from stem
to stern, and every man strained the ligaments of his throat to
breaking-point to catch the last flick of her lilac-coloured draperies.
Afterwards, every eye severely considered Bramham. He found himself
staring at two coffee-cups. A waiter at his elbow rudely inquired
whether the lady took sugar.
"Yes, two--all ladies do," he answered aggressively. To conceal his
discomfort he fell to perusal of the packet of papers she had put into
his hands. They were from managers, agents, and publishers, and
concerned themselves with contracts, royalties, and demands for the
first refusal of the next work of Miss Rosalind Chard, otherwise _Eve
Destiny_. Bramham became so engrossed at last that he forgot all the
staring people in the room and the two coffee-cups and his discomfort.
"She's a genius, by Jove!" he said grimly. "One must get used to being
made uncomfortable."