FANNY
I
DURING the long voyage Julia dismissed her work and its obligations from
her mind, and resigned herself to that form of happiness women are able
to extract from the mere fact of being in love, even when indefinitely
separated from the object. Her fear that she might have alienated Tay by
her excursion into his brain had been banished by his letters, and she
was free to enjoy herself miserably. She was delighted to find that he
filled every waking moment, that neither literature nor the several
pleasant people with whom she made acquaintance could send him to the
rear, and she cultivated long hours of solitude and idleness during
which she thought of nothing else. She projected her spirit into the
future and California, and dreamed of happiness only: politics, reform,
and the improvement of the race were not for dreams. The only real rival
of love is Art, for that in itself is a deep personal passion, its
function an act of creation, fed by some mysterious perversion of sex,
and demanding all the imagination’s activities. This rival Tay was
mercifully spared, and the god of duty, always arbitrarily elevated and
largely the child of egoism, stands a poor chance when gasping in the
furnace of love. Abstractly, Julia purposed to return to her duty when
its call became imperious, but during this period of liberty she felt
she would be more than fool to close her eyes to any of the beatic
pictures composed by her imagination and the tumults of sex.
Of course there were hours when she felt profoundly depressed and
miserable, when she stormed and protested, and hated the fluid desert
that prevented her from changing her course and fleeing to Tay. But
this, also, was novel and exciting and part of love’s curriculum; she
revelled in every manifestation of her long-denied womanhood, and was
further thrilled with the belief that no woman had ever suffered such an
upheaval before. She wrote a daily letter to Tay, revealing herself
without mercy, and found a keen delight in this new power of his to
annihilate the profound reserve of her nature.
The only thing she didn’t tell him was of the return of her old longing
for children. That inherent desire had slunk into horrified retreat at
France’s betrothal kiss, and had visited her but fitfully in India, but
now it reasserted itself almost as tyrannically as her longing for the
man who was the mate of her sex as surely as of her soul and brain. She
even felt a passionate delight that she soon could satisfy it
vicariously in Fanny. She had never ceased to love this child she once
had cuddled daily in her arms, and was far more excited at the prospect
of being with her again, than of seeing her strange old mother. To be
sure, her love for that once fond parent had risen in all its old
strength during this carnival of the primal, but Mrs. Edis at her best
was unresponsive, and after the long separation unlikely to thaw for
some time to come. In Fanny she could find satisfaction for her maternal
yearnings until they found their natural outlet. And she should take her
back to London, with or without her mother’s consent. Fanny! What did
she look like? She had been an adorable little dark baby; surely she
must have inherited the beauty of the family. Some were dark and others
almost blond, like herself, but both the Byams and the Edises had always
been famous for their looks. Even Mrs. Winstone had grudgingly admitted
that Fanny had exterior promise, and if she had turned out a beauty,
Ishbel should give her the best of girl’s good times in London. And she
herself should have something to cling to during these awful
months—perhaps years—of separation.
After she changed steamers at Barbadoes and began the leisurely journey
up the Caribbean Sea, she was much diverted by the beauty of the long
chain of islands, and began to thrill with the prospect of seeing her
birthplace once more. Her roots were in Nevis; it held the dust of
generations of her ancestors; it was the one perfect, peaceful, and
happy memory of her life, and never could she love even California as
well. She knew that she should have flown to it in her trouble were it
empty of both her mother and Fanny.
After the steamer left Antigua, she never took her eyes from the stately
pyramid, shadowy at first, detaching itself with a sharper definition
every moment. When she was close enough to see the green on its sweeping
lines, its waving fields of cane, its fine ruins of old “Great Houses,”
the white roads, deserted save for an occasional laborer or a colored
woman swinging along with a basket on her head, a pic’nie clinging to
her hip, the waving palms on the shore, the white cloud that hovered by
day over the lost crater, and extinguished the island at night, she ran
to her stateroom to quell an almost unbearable excitement. But Collins
was packing, and Collins was already puzzled, perturbed, and
speculating. No quicker antidote to tumultuous emotions could be
devised. Julia’s tears retreated, and she began to rearrange her flying
locks before the mirror; but it was impossible to keep the exultation
out of her voice.
“We’re nearly there, Collins!”
“Yes, mum.”
“It is my old home! Just think of it, I haven’t seen it for sixteen
years.”
“Yes, mum.”
“I’m sure you will enjoy staying here for a bit, Nevis is so beautiful.
There’s nothing in all Europe like it.”
“I shan’t be sea-sick. I’m thankful for that.”
“How do I look? I haven’t seen my waist line since I left London.”
“I dressed you this morning, mum. You look quite all right. Shall I
really sleep in a Christian bed to-night, and have a decent cup of tea?”
“You shall, you shall! And if my mother still kills stringy old cows,
I’ll get good English beef for you from Bath House.”
“Thank God, mum. Everything on board ship tastes that horrid I could eat
a cow cooked particular, no matter how stringy. Don’t lean on the rail
too much. Linen crushes that easy.”
Julia, who wore a linen coat and skirt of crash brown linen, with a hat
and parasol, and shoes and gloves, of a darker shade, nodded at herself
in the glass and returned to the deck. For the moment Tay was forgotten.
The steamer was rounding the island and she stared at Bath House, the
greatest hotel in the world in its time, a picturesque ruin in her
memory, now rebuilt in part and showing many signs of life. Colored
servants were hanging out of the upper windows cheering the ship, and
gayly dressed people were sitting on the terrace. But Julia, although
for a moment she resented the least of the changes in her island, soon
forgot Bath House as she eagerly gazed through her field-glass at the
groups down by the jetty. There was the usual crowd of whites and
negroes, some with much business to attend to when the ship cast anchor,
more with none whatever. In a moment she detached a group striving to
detach itself from the pushing crowd—all Charles Town seemed to have
turned out—and saw Mrs. Winstone, Mr. Pirie, several people of the same
class, and one young girl. Could that be Fanny? Once more her hands
shook. The girl was dancing up and down, waving her handkerchief. It
must be. Julia laid aside her field-glass and waved in return. Then the
delay seemed endless.
The water had become suddenly alive with boats. Little black boys were
diving for pennies. It was a gay tropical picture; and, behind, the
palms and the cocoanut-trees, fringing the suave flowing lines of the
great volcano.
The ladder was swung, the first officer gave her his arm, and she
descended to the boat, followed by the uneasy Collins, who looked at the
heaving waters below that frail craft with dire forebodings. But Julia
had no sympathy in her for Collins. Her thoughts were on Fanny, when
they were not adjusting her mask of bright cool serenity. She had no
intention of making an exhibition of herself in public.
All doubt of Fanny’s identity was set at rest, for a girl’s long supple
figure was flying down the jetty, and she was waving frantically and
calling out, “Aunt Julia! Aunt Julia!” Julia received a momentary shock,
not quite sure that she liked being called aunt by this tall girl, who
looked more than her eighteen years. But that was a trifle and she gazed
with both fondness and admiration at the blooming beauty of the girl who
now stood quite alone on the edge of the jetty. Fanny was very dark,
showing the French strain in their blood (Mrs. Edis’s father had found
his wife on Martinique); her large eyes and abundant hair were black,
her skin olive and claret, her full large mouth as red as one of the
hibiscus flowers of her native island; her figure, both slender and
full, was as beautiful as her face, even in the white cotton frock which
she probably had made itself. Julia thought she had never seen a more
perfect type of voluptuous young womanhood, and reflected that she
should not be long marrying her off in London, even without a dowry.
She smiled happily, and a moment later, elevated to the jetty by the
boatman, was enveloped, smothered, overwhelmed by Fanny.
“Oh, Aunt Julia!” cried the girl between her kisses. “Just to think you
are here at last! Something is actually happening on this old island.
Oh, promise me that you will take me away with you.”
“Yes, yes, indeed,” gasped Julia, her spirits unaccountably dashed. “Of
course I will, darling. How beautiful you are!”
“Oh, am I? Much good it has done me so far. I’ve just spoken to a young
man for the first time in my life, and he has gray hair.”
“You poor child! Did—did—my mother come down?”
“Not she. The steamer wasn’t expected until seven, and she was asleep.
When I saw it coming, I _ran_. She’d never have let me come. I’ve never
been outside the estate alone before. Even Aunt Maria hasn’t taken me
down to Bath House. There she is with an old gentleman that wears a
wig.”
They had reached the end of the long jetty, and Julia kissed her aunt,
shook hands with Mr. Pirie, who had eyes for no one but Fanny, and was
introduced to a young gray-haired man named Morison.
“_Mo_rison,” she repeated mechanically to herself. “Where have I heard
that name?”
But she had no time to think. Mrs. Winstone was talking rapidly. Julia
wondered if the tropics had affected her aunt’s nerves. She was twirling
her parasol, and her eyes had more intelligence in them than she usually
admitted, save when conducting a dilettante Suffrage meeting.
“Really, Julia!” she exclaimed. “It’s too tiresome. But I didn’t expect
the Royal Mail for hours yet; came down to see Hannah and Pirie at Bath
House, and sent the horses to be shod. They’re not ready, and there’s
nothin’ else—everybody drivin’. Do you think you could walk up the
mountain in this heat?”
“Of course she can’t!” cried Fanny. “Of course she can’t!”
“I’m sure I could,” began Julia, but once more Fanny enveloped her.
“Oh, no, darling,” she cried entreatingly. “You’d faint in that
heat—climbing. It was bad enough coming down. And, oh, I do want
another glimpse of Bath House. You’ve no idea how excited I was all the
time it was building. It was like an old romance come to life. But much
good it has done me. And it has an orchestra!”
Julia laughed outright. Fanny might not possess the priceless gift of
tact, but she was enchantingly young. Her exuberant youth, in fact, made
everybody else feel superannuated, and her next remark, as she and Julia
started for the hotel arm in arm, did not remove the impression.
“How oddly young you look, Aunt Julia,” observed the girl, whose large
curious eyes were exploring every detail of Julia’s appearance. “Of
course I knew you were much younger than Granny or Aunt Maria, or I
shouldn’t have been so keen to have you come home, but you look almost a
girl. I suppose it’s because you are quite a little thing and haven’t
grown either scrawny or fat.”
“Really,” said her aunt, dryly, “I’m five feet three and a half, and
thirty-four is a long way from old age.”
“Well, it’s not young,” said Fanny, who appeared to be of a hopelessly
literal turn. “Thirty-four! Why you are only a year younger than mother
would have been.”
This remark touched a chord which for the moment routed anxious vanity.
Julia put her arm about Fanny’s waist, no slenderer than her own. “I
wish you _were_ mine!” she said fondly. “But sister is the next best
thing. I can’t have you calling me aunt. That is much too remote—I have
wanted you for so many years. You must imagine that you are my little
sister, and call me Julia. Will you?”
“Yes, if you like. But promise me that you will bring me to Bath House
every day. You will want to come yourself, if only to get away from
Great House, and you have friends there—a nice old lady named
Macmanus—and I saw two or three women with _such_ frocks! Did you bring
me any frocks from London?”
“Ah—I didn’t! But, you see, I not only left in such a hurry, but I had
no idea whether you were tall or short. Of course I brought you some
presents.”
“Oh, did you? What are they?”
“Some pretty silver things for your dressing-table, and a manicure set,
and some scarves, and all sorts of fol-de-rols that pretty girls like.”
“Well, that’s too sweet of you,” and Fanny, kissed her again. “But I’d
rather have had frocks. What shall I do if you take me to the party at
Bath House on Thursday night?—and you must! You must! There’s no
dressmaker on Nevis that could make a party-gown.”
“You shall have any of my evening gowns you want. You are taller, but
Collins is quite a genius.”
Fanny almost danced. “That will be heavenly. Oh—oh—talk about frocks!”
“What a pretty woman!”
They were both looking at a very smart young woman advancing down the
palm avenue. She had a dark vivid little face, and wore a frock of
sublimated pink linen, and a soft drooping black hat. She smiled and
waved her parasol as she caught Julia’s eye.
“Of course you’ve forgotten me, Mrs. France,” she cried gayly.
“This is Mrs. Morison, of New York, Julia,” said Mrs. Winstone, who had
accelerated her steps. Her voice had lost its drawl.
“Mrs. Morison?” asked Julia, with a premonitory tremor.
“Yes—Emily Tay—but of course you’ve quite forgotten me. I never forgot
you, though—and that terrible old castle you showed me for a solid
hour.”
Julia had taken her hand mechanically, wondering if Nevis were shaking
herself loose from the sea.
“Of course I do remember you. I liked your independence. But how odd you
should be here.”
“Not a bit of it. I’m always after novelty—restless American, you know,
and this is the very latest. Besides, my husband had an attack of Wall
Street prostration, and this wasn’t too far. But it’s simply enchanting
to see you again—I’ve been so proud these last two or three years to be
able to say I knew you.”
Fanny cast a glance over her shoulder, then fell back between Mr. Pirie
and Mr. Morison.
“I saw Dan in New York,” Dan’s sister rattled on. “It was too funny. He
was in a beastly glum temper, until I mentioned your name. Then he
cleared up so suddenly that I had my suspicions. Do you remember how
dead in love with you he was at the tender age of fifteen, and what a
time Cherry had inducing him to go home without you? I’ve just the ghost
of an idea he hasn’t got over it. Poor Dan! Of course you’d never look
at him.”
“And why not?” asked Julia, in arms.
“Well, you are some person over there, and California is the jumping-off
place.”
“I thought it was the most beautiful country in the world.”
“Oh, it’s that, all right. But after London—or New York! I do want Dan
to transfer his energies to New York. It’s the only place in America to
live.”
“Perhaps he thinks he can do more good in his own state.”
“New York being in no need of a clean-up! However, no doubt you’re
right. Dan’s a tremendous gun out there, if he does make himself
unpopular. I try to console myself with the thought that he’s making a
national reputation, but meanwhile my income doesn’t go up. However, of
course you’re not interested in our politics. Dan’ll be delighted to
hear that we’ve met again. Here we are. You must be dying for your tea.”
II
THEY crossed the terraces and entered the cool spacious hall of the
hotel. Mrs. Macmanus, who was sitting alone, came forward and kissed
Julia warmly.
“So delighted you’ve come down here to liven us up a bit, my dear. Maria
has almost deserted us. It was only to-day I heard you were coming. Bath
House is in quite a flutter.”
“My nerves haven’t been worth mentioning since we got Julia’s cable,”
said Mrs. Winstone, who was close on Julia’s heels. “I came to Nevis to
rest them, and Fanny alone would set them on edge. I don’t believe she’s
slept since she heard Julia was comin’.”
Julia, whose agitation had subsided, hastily swallowed a cup of strong
tea, left the group abruptly, and put her arm about Fanny. Here, at
least, was peace and diversion.
“Come and talk to me, darling,” she said. “I’ve a thousand things to say
to you.”
Fanny, who was alone with Mr. Pirie at the moment, went willingly, and
they sat down on one of the sofas at the end of the long hall.
“Now let me really look at you. Yes, you look like Fawcett. Do you
remember your father?”
“How could I? I was only three when he died.”
“And now you are eighteen! I cannot take it in. I believe I have always
thought of you as a baby.”
“Oh, do you think Granny’ll let me go back with you? She hates the world
and despises men—as if they were all alike! But at least—Oh, please
_swear_, dear Aunt—Julia—that you will help me to play a bit while
you’re here. You can’t fancy how dull I am. I want to come to Bath House
every day, and dance every night. You can tell Granny that Mrs. Morison
is an old friend of yours, and has come to Nevis to see you. Of course
Granny’ll let me go anywhere with you.”
“Poor mother!”
“Oh, she’s had her own way all her life; just what I’d like to have.
Please pity _me_, Julia. Why, I might marry if I ever had a chance to
see a man nearer than through a field-glass. The war-ships that I’ve
seen come and go in this roadstead! And the St. Kitts girls dancing on
them! But I! I might as well be one of those Dutch women in the crater
of St. Batts, making drawn-work from one year’s end to the other.”
“Poor child! You may be sure I’ll do all I can. But—ah—” Julia felt
quite the aunt for a moment. “Don’t be in such a hurry to marry.”
“But I am in a hurry to marry. That’s the only road out of Nevis. And
what girl isn’t in a hurry to marry? If Granny wouldn’t give her
consent, well—I’d just love to elope.”
Julia laughed. “If you are as romantic as that, I must manage that you
see a good bit of the world before you enter the somewhat prosaic state
of matrimony—”
“I am romantic—rather! I think of nothing else but love—love—love.
I’ve made up a lover out of all the novels I’ve read—and I’ll have one,
no fear! But I must have a chance to see him first. So please give it to
me.”
“Where have you found novels to read? Mother long since wrote me to send
you none.”
“Oh, I know. And Aunt Maria keeps hers locked up. But I run the estate,
you know, and I have to go over to St. Kitts every now and again,
body-guarded by two old servants, of course, and I’ve made friends with
some girls over there, and they’ve lent me a few. And I always manage to
pass an hour in the public library, and look at the picture papers.
Granny takes in nothing but the _Weekly Times_. Sometimes, when we are
driving, she lets me get out and read the cablegrams tacked up on the
court-house door! Oh, what a place to live in!”
“And yet I could wish that I had never left Nevis. I almost wish I need
never leave it again.”
“Oh, you’ll get over that in about a week. Aunt Maria yawns all the
time. If it weren’t for her complexion and her waist line, she’d be
packing now. What does she want? She’s always spying on me.”
Mrs. Winstone descended upon them precipitately. There was a pleasurable
excitement in her mien, and once more Julia wondered if she, like many
others, had found the tropics bad for the nerves.
“Fanny. Mr. Pirie wants to talk to you, calls you a blushing peach,
volcanic product: you’ve quite rejuvenated him. I want to ask Julia
about our great cause in London.”
“I’ll not talk to any old men. Mr. Morison’s quite nice. What a bore
he’s married. I could have cried when I heard it, although I never could
fall in love with a man with gray hair.” And she deliberately walked
over to the young man lounging in a chair and staring at her.
“A bit forward, our Fanny,” said Julia, with a sigh. “But she has all
her father’s love of life.”
“And all her grandmother’s of havin’ her own way. Not that it’s worth
analyzin’. Analyzin’s so fatiguin’. She’s young, pretty, healthy,
starves for life, and exists on a volcano! I’d feel sorry for her if I
wasn’t sure she could take care of herself. What’s your impression of
her?”
“She’s a beauty. A rather obvious type, perhaps, but still—How’s my
mother?”
“Quite all right. She’ll bury us all, and then merely desiccate—or fly
off on a broomstick.”
“Was—is—do you think she wants to see me?”
“Don’t ask me. She won’t talk about you. But—but—” Mrs. Winstone shot
a cunning glance out of her now absent and ingenuous orbs. “Do tell me,
Julia,—I’m expirin’ with curiosity—what brought you here? You hadn’t
the least notion of comin’ when I saw you last. Has Mr. Tay—”
“I don’t care to talk about Mr. Tay.”
“Of course it’s none of my business, but please! I’ve been quite excited
ever since I came down to-day—it’s astonishin’ what will interest one
on a desert island!—But Pirie and Hannah have known all about it ever
since Mrs. Morison came. It seems she—ah!—well, came down here on
purpose to see you, persuaded her husband he was ill—”
“What an idea!”
“Quite so!”
“But after all, not so unnatural. I may as well tell you, Aunt
Maria—there is no occasion for mystery—I am—that is, in a
way—engaged to Mr. Tay. But it’s all in the air, at present. It is
impossible to marry him without an American divorce, and it is not
necessary to explain to you how out of the question that will be for
some time to come. But—I was feeling rather done, and the truce with
the Government gave me the opportunity I have so longed for—to come to
Nevis once more, to see my mother.”
“Oh, that is it! Nevis is good for the nerves; or would be without
Fanny, and one or two other distractions. Now, I’ve quite an excitin’
duty to perform, and time’s up. Mr. Tay is here!”
“What?” Julia once more had the sensation that Nevis had left her
moorings. She caught the back of the sofa for support. “What are you
talking about? Mr. Tay is in California.”
“Not he. He’s been here, stalkin’ round this island, or cruisin’ round
in a motor boat he’s hired, for the last five days. I saw him through
the field-glass, but didn’t know what brought him until to-day.”
“But what—what—has he come for? Oh, how could he!”
“He’ll tell you that, never fear! The others, includin’ Mrs. Morison,
were all for a surprise, but I thought it my duty to tell you. That is
the reason I wanted you to go straight home—surprises are so
fatiguin’—but there may be time yet. He’s off somewhere in his boat,
and the steamer was ahead of time—”
Julia sprang to her feet. “I’ll go this minute. I can walk. You stay
with Fanny—poor little thing—”
And then she sat down. Tay was running up the steps of the terrace.
Mrs. Winstone rose and retreated gracefully. Julia’s heart had leaped,
but she was very angry. She had made her own plans too long. This was to
have been an interval of rest. As Tay walked rapidly down the long hall
she was not too agitated to observe that although his keen eyes were
alight and eager, and his mouth smiling, there was less confidence in
his bearing than usual; she also observed that white linen became him
remarkably.
“I think this quite abominable of you,” she said coldly, as he dropped
into the chair before her. She withheld her hand.
“So does my father. But please don’t be angry with me. I really couldn’t
help it when I heard—”
“How did you hear? Dark, of course. What treachery!”
“Treachery to me if he hadn’t!”
“How you men stand by one another,” said Julia, bitterly. “Especially
when it is to defeat a woman.”
“Well,” said Tay, laughing, more at his ease in the presence of futile
feminine wrath, “it may be our most contemptible trait, but we shall be
driven to practise it more and more, I fancy.”
“I refuse to joke, and I am going home at once.”
She rose.
“Sit down,” said Tay, peremptorily. “If you don’t, I shall kiss you in
the presence of Bath House. They can’t hear what we say, but you may be
sure they are all watching us.”
Julia hesitated, then sat down. “What—what made you do this? I never
should have believed it of you. I came here for rest—for—for
strength.”
“Strength? Great Scott! You need less, not more.”
“Oh—I— You’ll never know what I’ve gone through! I shan’t give you the
letters I wrote you—”
“Now, Julia, be rational. I simply couldn’t resist coming, that’s all. I
cut out business, politics, everything, the moment there was a prospect
of seeing you again—and on an enchanted island! The rest can wait, but
I, well, I couldn’t! This past month has seemed like a wasted lifetime.
I thought I was resigned. I resisted engaging a passage back to England
by wireless. I might have got through those six months in California by
doing the work of six men; but I could see no reason why I shouldn’t
spend at least the interval between steamers with you here. There will
be no harm done—much good, for it will make the separation shorter.”
“Dan,” said Julia, sitting upright, “there is something behind all this.
What have you really come here for? After all it’s not like you. In the
first place you have imperative duties in California, and then—you
know, you _know_, that I need all my strength.”
He hesitated. Should he tell her? But there are certain facts that sound
ugly when put into bald English, whatever the excuse; and he doubted if
he ever could tell her that he had come to Nevis to wait for a cablegram
announcing the death of her husband. Not now, at all events!
“My dear child!” he said earnestly, and before his hesitation became
noticeable. “Is not love excuse enough for anything? Haven’t men
sacrificed duty, done everything that was rash and foolish, for love,
since the beginning of time? The prospect of two or three weeks with you
on a tropic island was too much for my limited powers of endurance. I
suddenly wanted you more than anything on earth. This is a wonderful
place—I never knew I had so much romance in me—let us forget the
coming separation and be young and happy.”
Julia leaned back and looked down. “I should have told you more about my
mother,” she said, infusing her tones with ice to keep them from
vibrating with delight at the vision he had evoked. “Made you realize
just what she is. You will never be able to cross her threshold. She
would think that you came to see Fanny. Or if she guessed that you loved
me, a married woman,—why! she’s quite capable of locking me up on bread
and water.”
“Gorgeous! We’ll have a real old-fashioned romance. You will climb out
of the window—”
“She’d nail the jalousies.”
“There are no jalousies I can’t unnail—”
“Oh, you’d never get past the gates. She’d post blacks with guns at
every corner of the stone wall about the grounds. You don’t know her.
She doesn’t belong to this century. She’s never brooked opposition to
her will since she was born.”
“Those crude forthright persons are just the ones that can always be
outwitted. She needn’t know I’m here. I’ll not go to the house. You can
meet me in a hundred enchanting nooks—down among the palms on the
beach, in the ruins of one of those old estates, in a jungle I’ve
discovered, with a creek, and all sorts of tropical trees that give more
shade than these feather dusters they call royal palms—”
“I won’t leave my mother’s house!”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“Julia, you have the longest and the blackest eyelashes I ever saw, and
you have never given me such an opportunity to admire them. But on the
whole I prefer your eyes. Look at me.”
Julia raised her eyes, and Tay held his breath. They were full of tears.
“Oh, please go, Dan,” she whispered. “I suffered death after you left
before. I can’t, can’t go through all that again. I couldn’t stay here
after you left. I never wanted to see you again until I could marry you.
I know now why you have come to Nevis. You think that here, where I
spent my youth, where it is difficult to remember England and Suffrage,
I will weaken—that I will go with you to that horrid place and get a
divorce. It was very clever of you, and I might! Oh, I might! You have
been too strong for me from first to last. But I don’t want to! I want
to finish my duty, as I planned. Please, please go. There is a German
steamer in the roadstead. Take it and wait on one of the Danish islands
for the American steamer—”
“Julia, there is only one thing on earth I won’t do for you, and that is
to leave you now. And believe me, I had no such subtle far-seeing policy
in coming here. My purpose was far simpler. I’d marry you up in Fig Tree
Church to-morrow if you were free, but if—as I can’t, I’ll be content
with this brief romance. Now promise that you will meet me to-morrow
over in that jungle—”
“I won’t! I won’t!”
“Then, by God, I’ll manage things myself—if I have to murder niggers
and break in—”
“Julia! Julia!” cried Fanny’s excited voice. “The horses are shod. Aunt
Maria wants to go.”
She was running down the hall. As Tay rose she stopped short and stared,
her heavy lids lifting.
Julia rose hurriedly. “Fanny, this is Mr. Tay, an American friend of
mine. My niece, Fanny Edis.”
“An American?” cried Fanny. “Another! Well, Nevis _is_ waking up. Are
you thinking of buying an estate and planting?” she asked eagerly. “You
don’t look as if you had rheumatism.”
Tay played a bold hand, knowing that young girls like romance even at
second hand. “I came to Nevis to see Mrs. France,” he said deliberately.
“We are engaged to be married, and she tells me it will be difficult to
see her in her mother’s house. Suppose you lend me a helping hand.” And
he held out his with a charming smile.
Fanny scowled, and for the moment looked more formidable than handsome;
then, with the adaptability of youth, was suddenly afire at the prospect
of a vicarious romance.
“How perfectly glorious!” she cried. “Oh, I’ll help you, Mr. Tay.
Granny’ll never let you in. But I’ll hide you in the shrubberies. I’ll
throw you a rope over the wall, made of ancestral sheets—”
“Fanny!” said Julia, severely. “We’re not characters in an old-fashioned
novel.”
“Don’t I wish we were! That’s all I could be. Oh, Mr. Tay, don’t give
up.”
“Fanny! Do you forget that my husband is alive?”
“Oh, what’s a lunatic? Mr. Tay just said you were engaged, and anybody
can get a divorce. They’ve been talking about it on the terrace.”
“Ah!” Julia made an attempt at lightness. “You are not so inhospitable
to these times, after all.”
“I’d swallow them whole. But lots of kings and queens were divorced ages
ago. When you’re in love I don’t fancy the century makes any
difference.”
“Good! It all comes back to that, Miss Edis!”
“When there’s nothing else to be considered. Come, Fanny.” She held out
her hand to Tay. “Good-by. I hope you will take that German steamer—”
“Aunt Julia! Where is your West Indian hospitality?”
“It must wait. Will you go?”
“I shall not. Permit me to see you to your carriage.”
“I’d—I’d rather you stayed here. Anyhow, it’s good-by.”
“Good afternoon,” said Tay, shaking her hand heartily.
“Good-by.”
“Good afternoon.”
Julia turned her back and walked up the hall, her head very high, and
hoping she could control the longing to run back.
“You won’t give up, Mr. Tay?” asked Fanny, eagerly.
“Never, Miss Edis.”
“Oh, something is happening on this old island! And what fun it’ll be to
get ahead of Granny. I’ll help you. Good-by.” She ran after her aunt,
but cast a rapid backward glance over her shoulder. English dukes and
European princes had been the heroes of her romantic imaginings,
Americans standing, in her limited knowledge of the outside world, for
all that was plebeian and strictly commercial. But she liked the looks
of this one. By some freak of fate he was a gentleman. And she was to be
a character in a live romance!
III
THE terraces, mercifully, possibly tactfully, were deserted. Julia
greeted warmly the old man who had served for so many years as butler
and coachman, then announced curtly that she had a headache, and kept
her eyes closed as the lean old horses crawled through Charles Town and
up the mountain. She was still very angry with Tay, but, on the whole,
more so with herself. Why hadn’t she rushed into his arms and been happy
for a few moments? And what did she really intend to do? She had not the
least idea. He had an amazing faculty for getting his own way. He would
manage to see her, and what would be the outcome? Was there anything he
would stop at? It were more than human not to feel a thrill of
excitement.
Her anger passed, and she wondered if she should not steal out and meet
him that very night. Why not? Why not? Hadn’t she her right to live? She
forgave Tay promptly for this last and most reckless proof of his love
for her. Lightly as he had dismissed the fact, she knew that he had made
heavy sacrifices in turning his back on California at this critical
moment. His party might declare him a traitor and cast him out. He
deserved his reward. All the romance in her nature leaped into sudden
and vivid life. To her Nevis was the most beautiful spot on earth. To
live a few intense weeks—what a memory—
But she opened her eyes as if under the impact of a cold shower. The
carriage had entered the grounds about the house. Here, in these
beautiful wild spaces of tropic tree and shrub and flaming color, France
had once followed her about, striving to kiss her. Here he had kissed
her the day he had been forced to leave her for the ship, immediately
after the marriage ceremony. His menacing shadow seemed to detach itself
as on that awful night in the plantation of White Lodge. Her life with
him rose and overwhelmed her. She sat up with a gasp. No romance on
Nevis for her!
“Are you thinkin’ of the meetin’ with your mother?” asked Mrs. Winstone.
“Fanny and I’ll leave the field clear. She’s probably in the
living-room.”
Julia descended slowly, and glanced through the window before entering.
Mrs. Edis was sewing by the lamp on the table; the tropic night had
descended with a rush. She was a little more bowed than formerly,
perhaps a trifle pallid. But her hair was still almost black. Time might
have forgotten and passed her by.
As Julia opened the door, she lifted her deep piercing eyes, seized her
stick, and rose to her feet. Her hand trembled, but not her voice.
“I am glad to see you, Julia,” she said, in her grand manner. “But the
steamer must have been ahead of time.”
She presented her gnarled cheek to be kissed, but Julia, who had
suffered many emotions that day, burst into tears and flung herself into
her mother’s arms.
“Oh, do say you are glad to see me. I am so miserable, so worried. Oh,
please do!”
Mrs. Edis patted her head, but her voice remained dry.
“You have been long coming, but you must know how glad I am to see you
once more before I die. Your trouble must be grave indeed! You have been
in trouble before.”
Mrs. Edis’s tones would have dried any fountain. They also expressed
suspicion. Julia took out her pocket-handkerchief.
“Forgive me. It isn’t worth speaking of. I am only tired. Of course we
are all, we women, in a sea of difficulties—”
“Not a word of that, if you please.” Mrs. Edis sat down; the glistening
heavy brows that Captain Dundas had once compared to lizards, met over
her flashing eyes. “You must make up your mind not to mention that
disgusting subject while you are in my house. If that is your trouble,
you will have every opportunity to forget it!”
“I came to forget everything but you and Nevis and Fanny. Now give me
another kiss, and I’ll go and make myself presentable. I don’t want you
to find me too much changed.”
“Maria told me that you had changed very little, and I thought you
looked quite pretty before you reddened your eyes. Run along and I will
order dinner.”
At the table Mrs. Edis betrayed a little of the joy she felt at the
return of her prodigal, by talking far more than her wont. She told
Julia the gossip of the islands, mostly mortuary, as all the old women
of her own generation had died; but although she anathematized Bath
House and the idle rheumatics it would bring to Nevis, she permitted
herself to express hope regarding the future of the islands. She went to
her room immediately after the meal finished, but it was long before
Julia could enjoy the seclusion of her own. Fanny, who barely opened her
mouth before her grandmother, burst into speech the moment that august
presence was withdrawn, and Julia for quite three hours was obliged to
answer her questions regarding the great world of London, when not
sympathizing with the dynamic maiden’s hatred of life on Nevis.
“Good heaven!” she thought. “That I ever could have imagined a girl of
eighteen interesting!”
She locked herself in her own room at last, but not to sleep. Her
homecoming had proved a bitter disappointment. Fanny she might have
forgiven, for all girls were more or less alike, wrapped up in
themselves, happy in the delusion of their supreme importance. But her
mother! She had always remembered her as the most wonderful of her sex,
a tower of strength, no matter how hard, a superwoman isolated on a rock
in the Caribbean Sea. What was she, after all, but an obstinate old
woman? Was she to find strength in no one but herself? Well, why not?
Hadn’t it been her cherished ideal to stand alone?
But what, in heaven’s name, was she to do with Tay?
The rooms opened upon a corridor, but her window was only a few feet
above the large garden in front of the house. She unlatched the jalousie
and sprang to the ground. Here she could decide his fate without
sentiment, for here was the shadow of France. But the shadow had
departed and ignored her summons. The renaissance of old impressions is
fleeting. It rarely comes twice, and never at command. And Nevis and all
things on it were changed! Only one of the old servants, Denny, was
alive. She had visited the outbuildings before dinner, eager for
familiar faces. The girls of her youth were fat old women. There were
many of them, and the pic’nies swarmed as of yore. The court, no doubt,
was still full of color by day, but everything was orderly and clean;
there were few of the old evidences of congenital laziness. Fanny, for
all her romantic notions, was an admirable overseer—and a tyrant. Since
this duty had been thrust upon her by her inexorable grandparent, she
would use it as an outlet for her energies; and Julia suspected that she
found a decided gratification in ruling her subjects with an iron hand.
The white cloud on Nevis had slipped down the mountain, enveloping it in
a fine white mist. The garden was full of enchanting shapes, of heavy
intoxicating odors. Where was Tay? Why had he not come to shake her
jalousie? She longed to find him hiding under one of the heavy trees.
But he was probably asleep at Bath House; and his temporary quiescence
inspired her reason with gratitude. For the first time she feared him.
He had come to Nevis for no such indefinite object as an episodical
romance. He meant to take her with him when he left, possibly to forge
the strongest of all bonds in the earlier phases of love. This thought
made her angry once more, roused the subtle antagonism of sex. If it
came to an actual contest of strength, here was her chance to prove to
him what the years and much else had made of her.
She went to bed, and her thoughts turned contritely to Fanny. Was she
really disappointed in this girl who seemed to be the embodiment of
soulless, unimaginative, brutal youth? Or might not she still find her
so interesting as a study, and companion, that the old fond image would
be undeplored? The last, no doubt. She had been just as soulless, and
her true imagination as unawakened. She went to sleep determined to love
Fanny whatever befell.
IV
SHE slept until late in the day, Mrs. Edis having given orders that she
should not be disturbed. Otherwise the routine of Great House was not
altered. Fanny took her daily ride over the estate. Mrs. Edis sat in her
chair in the living-room, making a feint of sewing, in reality listening
for Julia’s footfalls. So she had sat listening for sixteen years.
But it was a lagging, almost elderly step that she finally heard
approaching along the terrace at the back of the house. A moment later
Mrs. Winstone entered, flushed, damp, but with her eyes full of
malicious amusement.
“Really, Jane,” she drawled, “the tropics were never made for walkin’. I
believe I’ll keep my new waist line—”
“Not a bad idea to keep what little Nature is still willing to give
you.” Mrs. Edis’s voice was as sarcastic as her eyes. “I hope there was
no bad news in your note?”
“Note?” Mrs. Winstone turned her back and began to rearrange the flowers
on the bookcase.
“Do you fancy the least event could happen in this house without my
knowledge?”
“Really, it was so unimportant I had forgotten it. Merely an invitation
to Bath House. That reminds me—” She adopted her airiest tones. “Have I
spoken to you of Mrs. Morison? Charmin’ little woman stoppin’ at Bath
House. I met her drivin’ just now, and impulsively asked her to come to
tea to-day, and bring the others. How naughty of me. I should have
consulted you first.”
“Your friends are welcome to tea. I am not a pauper.”
“But such a hermit! It is too kind of you to take _me_ in. I don’t fancy
botherin’ you with my friends.”
“How is it you were not carried away by impulse before?”
“I came to Nevis to see you and to rest. I see enough of Hannah and
Pirie in London. But now that Mrs. Morison has come to Bath House, and
her brother, Daniel Tay—”
Mrs. Edis lifted her head as if she scented powder. “A man? Is he
married?”
Mrs. Winstone smiled significantly. “Oh, dear me, no!”
“How old is he?”
“About thirty.”
“I’ll have no young man in this house.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t look at Fanny. Hates girls. He’s a very dear, a very
particular friend of mine.”
Mrs. Edis laid her work on the table, dropped her spectacles to the end
of her nose, and surveyed the smart figure with the developing waist
line. “And what are you doing with very dear and particular friends of
that sex at your time of life?”
“Dear Jane!” said Mrs. Winstone, with asperity, and transferring her
attention to the early Victorian tidies. “Please remember that if you
live out of the world I live in it. Oh, la! la! Come over to London and
see the procession of hansoms in Bond Street containin’ smart
gray-haired women and nice boys. The gray hairs are generally payin’ for
the hansoms, and more. I never had a gray hair, and my rich American
friend always pays for the hansoms, and more. Why shouldn’t I have a
youngish beau if I can get one? But really, I didn’t think he’d follow
me here!”
“Disgusting!” announced Mrs. Edis, who looked as if she had just entered
a room in the Paris salon devoted to the nude. “In my time—”
“Ah, dear Jane, that time is forever gone. You couldn’t get a bonnet in
all Bond Street to suit your years. Hannah Macmanus, who poses as an old
woman, has to have hers made at a little shop in Bloomsbury.”
“I can well believe it! I could see what London was coming to sixty
years ago. Enamelled old women—”
“Oh, la! la! Prehistoric! Filthy habit! To-day we keep our skins clean.”
“Do sit down. You are flouncing about like a sylph of twenty. I hope you
have not permitted yourself to become seriously interested in this young
man.”
Mrs. Winstone dropped into a chair on the other side of the table and
looked across the work-basket with airy self-consciousness.
“Why not?”
“You are an old fool, and he must be a young one.”
“Not a bit of it. Level-headed business man. Rich and strenuous.”
“Strenuous?”
“New word. American. Means a short life for yourself and a merry one for
your heirs.”
“Be good enough to confine yourself to English. Are you going to marry
this youth and make a laughing-stock of yourself and your family?”
“Marry? Oh, how tiresome of you to be so serious. I’d managed him so
well! I never thought he would follow me here when I need a rest. But
he’s romantic—”
“Romantic? He must be if he’s in love with you. Really, Maria, I never
even look at you that I don’t feel like giving thanks I have been
permitted to spend my life on Nevis.”
Mrs. Winstone fetched a little sigh. “But you don’t mind my askin’ these
people to tea?”
“It is a long time since a stranger has crossed my threshold. Still,
they are welcome. This is your birthplace as well as mine.”
“How sweet of you! I’ll go and smarten up a bit.” As she was leaving the
room she turned, knit her brows, and said hesitatingly, “Better not tell
Julia they’re comin’. She left London because she was sick of people,
and has really come for a rest. She might run away, and Mrs. Morison is
dyin’ to meet her. Americans are quite mad about celebrities.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Edis, impatiently.
She sewed for half an hour longer. Suddenly her eyes flashed and she
lifted her head. But when Julia came in she said formally:—
“Good morning. Do you always sleep until noon?”
“Rather not! But I didn’t go to sleep till nearly dawn, I was so
excited. I shall get up every morning at five and take that old walk
round the cone. How often I have thought of it.”
“You have been long coming to take it.”
Julia seated herself on the arm of her mother’s chair, and took the work
out of her hand. “Now,” she said, “let’s have it out. You are angry with
me for staying away for sixteen years, among other things, and I have
been very angry with you. But all my childish resentment was over long
ago. It is time you forgave me. If I stayed away, it was because you
never asked me to come. Since the day the duke married, you have written
me nothing but formal notes, except when you were angry with me for some
new cause. You have hurt me more than I can have hurt you, and I have
resented your injustice. But let us bury it all. If you knew how glad I
am to be here again, to see you look just the same! If you would only be
your old self, I could feel your little girl once more. The past—much
of it—seems like a dream—”
Mrs. Edis threw back her head. Her heavy nostrils dilated. She looked
like an old war-horse. She raised her stick and brought it down on the
hard floor with a resounding thump. “Yes!” she said harshly. “Let us
have it out. Let me tell you that I have sat here for ten of those years
waiting to acknowledge that I have been tortured by remorse. I could not
bring myself to write it. But I never thought you would stay away so
long— You!—and I an old old woman!”
Julia had moved away uneasily at this outburst. “Oh, don’t!—never
mind—it was a natural enough mistake on your part. Let us never speak
of it again. I should have come long ago—but time passes so quickly—I
don’t think I realized—and then I thought you had given all your love
to Fanny—”
“Fanny?” with indescribable scorn.
“Oh, I see now you don’t care for her—”
“Let me finish. I am a hard old woman. Demonstrations are not for me.
Nor is my pride dead. That will survive life itself. But I will tell you
that I have never ceased to love you—I think I have never loved any one
else. Your first petulant childish letters—I didn’t choose to believe.
But later, when I began to hear those vague terrible rumors— My God!
Well, you had the world, and youth, and diversions—but I have sat here
and thought, and thought, and longed for death—”
“Oh, please! It has all been for the best. I needed a hard school. You
know what a child I was. If life had been too kind to me, I should have
developed slowly, if at all. I might have nothing but a cauliflower in
my brain to-day. Now, you would be proud of me if you would only let me
explain this great work to you, make you see what it means—”
“Not an allusion to that! You, who were born to be a duchess. Ah! Let me
confess that it is not remorse alone that has made me a desolate old
woman all these years. My old belief survived the marriage of the duke,
even the birth of his heir—at least, I clung to it. But when your
husband went hopelessly insane— Oh, my old belief! It had been
companion, friend, consolation—as satisfying as only a science can be.
When my faith in that was destroyed—”
“Ah! If you would only let me tell you something! I met far wiser men in
the East than old M’sieu. They placed a very different interpretation on
my horoscope—”
“What?”
“Why, can’t you see—what I have become in England—what I may still
become— Oh, far, far more!”
Mrs. Edis snorted in her wrath and disgust as she rose to her feet and
thumped the floor with her stick. “Gammon! Do you expect me to believe
that that is what the world has come to? Fighting and scratching
policemen, going to gaol, speaking on a public platform! Has that become
the substitute for a great English lady?”
“Oh, let us say no more about it. I recognize it is hopeless. If you
still believe that a woman’s highest destiny is to be an English
duchess— Do sit down. There is so much else to talk about.”
Mrs. Edis resumed her seat, but still frowning. She had quite forgotten
her remorse.
“I want to talk about poor little Fanny—”
“_Poor_ little Fanny?”
“Who has the best memory in the world? Who was the belle of the West
Indies in her day? I have an idea that Fanny looks exactly as you did at
her age. And she is not too unlike you in other things—”
“Arrant nonsense. What are you driving at?”
“I mean that youth has its rights, and you are depriving Fanny of hers.”
“I have replanted the entire estate and built a mill. Fanny will be rich
one day. I can’t abide the minx, but I know my duty to my son’s child,
and the last of my race.”
“So that is to be Fanny’s fate? A little West Indian planter! When she
dreams of nothing but love and marriage—”
“She knows naught of such things.”
“Oh, doesn’t she? And what of instincts, especially when a girl is
beautiful and fairly bursting with vitality?”
“She can consume her vitality in hard work. Youth and beauty soon pass.
Hers will go before they have given any man the chance to ruin her life.
In her lies my opportunity for atonement—”
“Fanny will marry. That is her obvious destiny. What is more, she will
marry the first man that asks her, unless she has the diversion of
society and many admirers. Bath House is open again. Many young men will
come—”
“Fanny will see none of them!”
“Oh, won’t she? Youth has a magnet all its own. They’ll be prowling
round the place, sitting on the wall like tomcats!”
“Is that a sample of the new school of conversation?”
“No, but it expresses a fact. Now, do be sweet and reasonable and let
Fanny go to the party at Bath House on Thursday night—”
“Not another word. Fanny goes to no parties, neither at Bath House nor
elsewhere. Have you quite forgotten me, that you fancy you can change my
mind when it is made up? There is the luncheon gong. Will you give me
your arm?”
V
“WELL,” said Fanny, “I saw you having a talk with Granny in here this
morning. I suppose she has promised I shall go to London and live like
other girls. That would be so like her,—such a sweet creature—”
“Sh—sh—”
“Oh, why not say what you think? I’d like to hear your real opinion of
her—after all these years.”
“She is my mother; and she was angelic to me this morning.”
Fanny stared, then burst into laughter. “Angelic! How I should like to
have seen Granny do it. Did you ask her if I could go to the party at
Bath House?”
“She is opposed to it,” said Julia, evasively, “but I think I can talk
her over. One would never expect to get the best of mother in the first
round. I must tell you, however, that I shall not go to Bath House
myself—”
“Oh, _that_ Mr. Tay! Only it _is_ romantic, and he _is_ handsome, and
quite nice. Do tell me, Julia,” she asked eagerly, “what is it like to
be in love with a real man?”
“Put such thoughts out of your head for the present.”
“Did he ever kiss you?”
“Have you looked over my evening gowns? Collins is quite excited at the
prospect of fussing with them.”
“How heavenly! I’ll go this minute! What on earth is the matter with
Denny? He looks as if he’d just heard the guns at the fort announcing a
hurricane.”
The old man almost staggered in. His expression was quite wild.
“Lor’s sake, Missy,” he gasped. “A visitor! A man!”
Fanny snatched the card.
“Julia!” she cried, more excited than Denny. “It’s he! It’s Mr. Tay!”
Julia turned her face away and walked with great dignity to the opposite
door. “Tell him that he must excuse me,” she said over her shoulder.
“He ask for Mis’ Winstone, Mis’ Julia.”
“For whom?”
“He say she ask him for tea.”
“She must be quite mad. Well, go and find her.” And she hastened to her
room, determined to punish Tay for coming, but not so sure she should
not waylay him in the garden when he left.
“Denny,” said Fanny, “ask him to come in here. And you need not disturb
my aunt at present. She is taking her nap.”
“Yes, Missy.” And Denny went off, shaking his head.
Fanny ran over to a glass and smoothed her hair, put a flower in it, and
made an attempt to stiffen her figure until it looked as if incased in
stays. But when Tay entered she immediately became as natural as the
young female ever is in the presence of the young and marriageable male.
Tay did not look in the best of tempers, but she thought him quite
handsome enough to be the hero of a romance.
“Do sit down,” she said hospitably. “Aunt Maria will be in presently.
Oh, do tell me how you got in. I mean, what can Aunt Maria have told
Granny— Or hasn’t she told her? Perhaps I’d better take you out for a
walk. Granny might be too horrid.”
“I fancy Mrs. Winstone has told your grandmother that she asked me for
tea,” said Tay, with a slight access of color.
“But what?”
“Oh— Are not you too afraid of this—of your formidable grandmother?”
“Not a bit. I only pretend to be for the sake of peace. But, oh, do tell
me how Aunt Maria had the courage to ask you here! I’m simply mad with
curiosity. A young man in this house!”
Tay drew a long breath. This was an explanation he had not bargained
for, and those immense eyes were disconcertingly young, and very
handsome. “Well, you see—this is how it is: I came here, neglected
business and a good many other things, to see Julia France, and I have
no idea of wasting my time. I don’t like underhand methods. I’d rather
fight in the open any time, but with women you almost never can. So let
us call this strategy—”
“Yes! Yes!” cried Fanny. “But for heaven’s sake, what is it?”
“We had a conference last night at the hotel.” Tay got up and walked
about the room.
“Oh, do go on.”
“Well, briefly, we hatched a plot. Mrs. Winstone was to be induced to
tell your grandmother that she and I are engaged—”
“What?”
“Ah—yes.”
“You and Aunt Maria!” She succeeded in taking it in, then went off into
shrieks of laughter. Tay swore under his breath, and looked out of the
window.
“You and Aunt Maria! I never heard of anything so funny in all my life.
Why on earth didn’t you pretend to have fallen in love with me? That
would have fooled everybody, and I should have loved to take you out for
long walks—and turn you over to Julia!”
“You forget that a man doesn’t care to place a girl in a false
position—”
“But Aunt Maria never can have made Granny believe—”
“Why not? Half the women in London have admirers young enough to be
their sons, and sometimes they marry them. Your aunt could have one of
those brats dangling if she chose. It’s not my rôle, but I can play it
at a pinch.” He returned to his chair. “Do you think I can see Julia
to-day?”
“She ran away when she heard you were here.”
“Oh, did she?”
“I don’t think she means to see you. That would be horrid of her. But
you come here every day—to see Aunt Maria!—and I’ll manage it. And if
you always come when Granny’s asleep, you can talk to me.”
“That would be ample compensation,” said Tay, mechanically. He was
feeling very cross, and it was long since callow girlhood had appealed
to him. Still, this child was beautiful, and beauty exacts tribute at
any age. He told himself that he was a surly brute, and exerted himself
to be agreeable.
“You must find this a lonely life,” he observed. “What do you do with
yourself? Read novels? Go over to parties on St. Kitts?”
“Novels! Parties! I’ve read about ten, and I’ve never been to a party in
my life. You are the first young man I’ve ever talked to.”
“Really?” Tay was mildly interested. “What a life for a young girl. I’ve
never seen any one look less like a hermit. What _do_ you do with
yourself?”
“Oh, Granny put me in charge of the estate a year ago. She’s too old to
go out much, and she drilled me until I thought I’d go off my head. But
now I rather like it. There’s something to do, anyhow, riding over the
estate every morning, keeping the mill overseer from cheating, and
getting work out of lazy blacks. I can do that, and in a way it’s like
having a little kingdom all your own. I’ve made them all afraid of me.”
“Have you? By George, you are some girl! I thought you were merely out
for fun. I’d be put to it to find another girl of your
age—and—and—general style—who was running an estate. It seems to be
a remarkable family, altogether.”
Fanny saw that she had now really caught his attention, and found him
more attractive every moment. The subject of her prosaic duties had
never entered her imaginary conversations with young men, but this one
was quite different himself from any of her dreams; and she suddenly
found reality far more attractive than romance. She was also quick to
take a cue, and was about to launch upon a description of plantation
life in the West Indies, when Denny came running in, this time looking
fairly distracted.
“Lots of visitors, Missy!”
“I should have told you that Mrs. Winstone asked the rest of our party,”
said Tay.
Fanny forgot him in her fright, as Mrs. Macmanus, Mr. Pirie, and the
Morisons entered. But her instincts asserted themselves, and she went
through the ordeal very creditably.
“Why, how do you do?” she said hospitably. “I’m so glad to see you all
in our house. Please sit down. Denny, go and tell Mrs. Winstone.
Ah—won’t you take off your hats?”
“No, thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Morison, whose eyes were brimming with
mischief. “Mine is so becoming. Besides, a lot of hair would come off,
too.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Macmanus, “and thank you for asking me. Reminds me
of my youth.” And she removed her bonnet and rolled up the strings.
“Even one’s hair is too warm for the tropics. Pirie, you might take off
your toupee. I’ve seen you do it twice when you thought no one was
looking!”
“Really, Hannah!” Pirie almost exploded. What an assault in the presence
of glorious eighteen!
But Fanny was paying no attention to Pirie. She was gazing in rapt
admiration at Mrs. Morison’s airy toilette of daffodil yellow, with a
large chiffon hat of the same shade, covered with more little soft
feathers than she had ever seen before, and a perfectly useless, but all
the more enviable, sunshade of chiffon and lace.
Mrs. Morison saw the admiration in the girl’s eyes, and no admiration
was thrown away on her. She smiled brilliantly.
“How simply enchanting to see the inside of an old West Indian home,”
she exclaimed. “I never had any old-fashioned things in my life. Grandpa
emigrated to California in the fifties, and every house he built burned
down whenever the city did. So when I came along and pa was making _his_
pile, there wasn’t so much as a daguerrotype in the family. We were just
upholstered from New York and dressed from Paris. How’s that for family
history, Miss Edis?”
“Oh,” said Fanny, through her teeth, “how I should like to live in a
country where there were no ancestors. There’s nothing else here.”
Morison was also beaming upon her. “You must come and visit us in New
York,” he said. “We’re imitating England and becoming too democratic to
talk about ancestors, even when we’ve got ’em, and we usually haven’t.”
“Why, Nolly,” cried Emily, who was Californian when she wanted to be
audacious, but valued her New York to its ultimate vanishing drop of
azure blood, “you know your mother was a—”
“Pauper. She hooked my father, which is more to the point, and I’m in
the race for Millionaire Street, which is the whole point.”
“Oh, you little bleating Wall Street Calf! Such a little one, too, Miss
Edis.”
“I might be a bigger one if you spent less. What are we here for,
anyhow?” he asked, as Fanny, apprehending a domestic scene, moved away.
“Dan can take care of his own affairs, and I feel as if I were on a ship
in midocean with the wireless out of order.”
“What man ever could manage his own affairs? It would have been cruel to
let Dan come alone, and I know I can help him out. We mustn’t scrap and
frighten Mrs. France, or she’ll think the temper is in the Tay family,
whereas it’s always your fault—”
But she laughed good-naturedly, extracting the sting, and Morison, who
never quite understood her, was mollified and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I’m going to flirt with that little West Indian girl who doesn’t
know the first thing about life and wants to know it all in five
minutes. Great fun. Serve you right, too, for bringing me here.”
“Run along,” said his wife, indulgently, and he joined Fanny, who was
talking to Tay, and told her that the St. Kitts girls were coming to the
party on Thursday night. But Fanny had lost all interest in the married
man now that a single one had appeared, and gave him her shoulder with a
young girl’s brutality. A moment later, when Mrs. Winstone entered, she
deliberately drew Tay into the embrasure of one of the windows. She had
curled her lip at her grandaunt’s appearance, but the rest applauded,
and Mrs. Winstone was secretly delighted with herself. She had abandoned
her usual discretion and got herself up like a woman of thirty. There
was rouge on her cheeks, a flower in her youthfully dressed hair, and a
pink chiffon scarf floated over her white gown.
“Good! Good!” cried Mrs. Macmanus. “How does it work?”
“Oh, quite all right. Only I was made to feel as if I had escaped from
the mummy room in the British Museum and stolen my grandniece’s
clothes.”
“Upon my word, Maria,” said Pirie, gallantly, “I didn’t know you could
do it. Ten to one Tay does fall in love with you. Why not? Julia’s got a
bee in her bonnet. We men don’t like bees as domestic pets. They sting.”
“Curious that even the young men are as old-fashioned as ever, while the
women go marching on,” said Mrs. Macmanus, unrolling her knitting. “What
will you all do for partners, by and by?”
“Oh, we’ll still marry them,” said Mrs. Morison, patronizingly. “They
give us our little romance, and it’s no part of our policy to let the
race die out.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mrs. Macmanus, looking over her eye-glasses. “So
you, too, are a suffragette. You never gave us a hint.”
“I forgot about it down here. But last winter in New York, everybody who
was anybody, or wanted to be, went in for it. Two or three of the rich
and fashionable women whose names are regular electric signs—designed
by the press—great gilt way—took it up, and all the rank outsiders
fairly fell over themselves to get into the new Suffrage societies, and
shake hands with those Brunhildes come down off their fire-girt perch.
Makes me sick. I believe in it because I know it’s coming.”
“Ha! Ha!” cried Pirie. “A good patriot always loves the top.”
“Don’t be cynical, Pirie,” said Mrs. Macmanus, who had not failed to
note the longing glances cast in Fanny’s direction. “It can’t be laid to
extreme youth in your case.”
“Now, why is a man always called cynical when he tells the truth? No
limelight, no martyrs.”
“Oh, what a sophisticated old lot we are,” said Mrs. Macmanus, with a
sigh. “I wish I knew as little as that charming Fanny. She is
youth—innocent barbarous youth—personified. Look at her flirting with
her aunt’s lover. I always said that honor was an acquired virtue.”
“Sh—sh—” whispered Mrs. Winstone, and she sprang to her feet.
Mrs. Edis stood in the terrace doorway leaning on her stick. She looked
like an allegory of the past, the uncompromising disillusioned past,
which has come in contact with none of the bridges that connect with the
present. Her keen contemptuous gaze had just lit upon Fanny and Tay,
when the company, made aware of her presence, rose precipitately, and
were presented by Mrs. Winstone.
“I bid you all welcome to my house,” said Mrs. Edis, formally.
Fanny had hastily marshalled Tay into the circle. Mrs. Edis favored him
with a piercing look which gave him a sensation of acute discomfort.
“Good lord!” he thought. “Here’s an enemy worthy of any man’s mettle.
What a family!”
Mrs. Winstone almost laughed aloud as she met her sister’s glance of
disgust. It was long since she had enjoyed herself so thoroughly. To
outwit Jane and embroil everybody else was better for the nerves than
mere vegetating.
Mrs. Edis turned to Fanny.
“Where is Julia?”
“I don’t know, Grandmother.”
“Go and find her. She must not appear to want in hospitality.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Sit down, all of you.”
The company did as commanded, Tay in ostentatious proximity to Mrs.
Winstone. There was a moment’s profound silence, Mrs. Edis, like George
Washington, having the rare gift of immersing any company in an ice
bath. Mrs. Macmanus would never have dreamed of making conversation
unless she had something to say; Pirie and Morison, snubbed by Fanny,
were both sulky; Mrs. Winstone was flirting with Tay under the eagle eye
of her sister, who poured out the tea. Finally, Mrs. Morison, with the
American woman’s sense of conversational responsibility, rushed into the
breach, after peremptorily motioning to her husband to sit beside her on
the little sofa: here was an opportunity for a parade of domestic
American bliss.
“Oh, Mrs. Edis!” she cried. “We were just talking when you came in—
Aren’t you quite too frightfully proud of Mrs. France?”
“Frightfully?”
“Our dreadful slang. I mean—well, aren’t you too proud of her for
words?”
“And pray why should I be unable to express myself? Julia was always a
good child.”
“Oh, of course—but it isn’t often that any one is as good as Mrs.
France, and so tremendously clever.”
“I am glad to infer that you think well of Julia.” Mrs. Edis, reflecting
that society was even more silly than in her own day, wondered how long
these people would stay. She observed that the company was looking
amused, but before she had time to speculate upon the cause, she forgot
the rest of them, in her keen observation of Tay. He was ignoring Mrs.
Winstone and frowning at his sister. But in another moment she forgot
even him.
“Oh, I don’t count,” cried the desperate Mrs. Morison. “I’m merely
trying to make myself agreeable, in return for your gracious
hospitality. It’s what the world thinks.”
“The world?”
“Surely, you must feel proud that she’s quite the hope of the party, a
flaming torch. If she remains in London, why, she’ll be its only
leader—a regular queen.”
“Queen?”
Mrs. Edis set the tea-pot violently down.
“Prime Minister, you know, or something like that,” said Pirie. “Strange
things are happening.”