It was a very pleasant little dinner-party. Everybody had been cheerful
and talkative, and pleased with everybody else. The new curate was as
neutral as a curate should be and as Annabel Moulde would let him. Old
Mr. Valentine, quoting Shakespeare and criticizing the cooking, was
mellow with his hostess, and merciful to his grandchildren, and even
allowed Aunt Adela, who always expanded in the presence of ‘the
gentlemen,’ to gush and flutter unreproved at his deafer ear.
Wilfred and James, reliable as electric switches, had been instantly
illuminated by the advent of the two pretty cousins and by the end of
the meal, were already in the stammering stage of a great devotion,
though still uncertain at which shrine to pay their vows. James, singing
_Maid of Athens_ with equal feeling and flatness, for the ensnarement of
Lucy, could yet cock the eye of a connoisseur upon the proprietress of
Wilfred: and Wilfred, after seconding his brother with one finger in the
treble and a magnificent if uncertain bass accompaniment, was yet not
averse, as he cushioned himself on the congratulations of Rhoda, from
twirling his mustachelets, so much more promising than those of James,
in full view of his twin’s enchantress. Indeed, Laura’s experience, had
she been attending to them, would have prophesied a-set-to partners
before the evening was over, but a probable as-you-were by the end of
the following day. She would have foreseen a matinée—two or three
matinées—and probably a day on the river. She could have told you, for
all her unworldly air, that Rhoda (Laura did not approve of Rhoda) would
wear entirely unsuitable clothes, yet look so garishly attractive in
them that James would be once more unsettled in his mind: and that
Wilfred, the good comrade, and always the more puritan in his tastes,
would be relievedly ready to console Lucy: and that Lucy of the
dove-grey frocks, and neat shoes and gloves, would be demurely ready to
be consoled: and that in the small hours of Sunday she, Laura, would be
roused from sound sleep to entertain pyjamas and receive confidences,
bestowed, as a dog bestows the stone he wishes you to throw for him,
with circlings and shyings, and coy withdrawals, with a depositing of it
at your feet, and a thinking better of it, and a hasty retreat, and an
elaborate pretence of wishing to be unmolested, and of not knowing
anything of any stone at all.
Laura could have anticipated her brothers’ every gambit to you, if she
had not been occupied in discovering how different from the Justin of
relaxed waistcoat and pre-historic tweeds was the Justin of evening
dress and hospitable exertions, if she had not been so delightfully
employed in saying how-do-you-do to his creaseless shirt-front and
discreet studs and the unusually high collar that suited him better than
she could have believed, and in renewing acquaintance with his deep
voice and his slow sentences and his kind eyes.
Dinner-parties were rare enough for Mrs. Cloud to be similarly engaged.
Somewhere near his tie (it was a badly managed affair—the hands of both
women were itching to be at it) their glances met and exchanged
conviction that you might scour many more dinner-tables than England
held before you found another Justin.
“He has his little faults, of course,” conceded Laura’s eyes.
“And I am the first to admit them,” returned Mrs. Cloud’s.
“Nobody ever pretended that he was perfect,” Laura frowned.
“At the same time——” laughed the old eyes.
“And without partiality——” amended the young one’s—
“Have _you_ ever seen any one like him?” they demanded triumphantly: and
Laura and Mrs. Cloud smiled at each other across the table.
Dinner was over. Sugar and cream followed the mound of strawberries from
plate to plate, and Gran’papa was saying “_Doubtless_——” in the
unnatural voice of one about to make a quotation, when Mrs. Cloud lifted
her finger.
“Timothy!” she said resignedly and pushed back her chair.
“What about him?” Justin was at the side-board, busy with cork-screw and
a bottle.
“Listen!”
There was a thin piping in the air, the merest adumbration of a sound
that might have been a mouse, a creak in the woodwork, a whistle of
wind, or, if one were a grandmother, a child whimpering.
“I don’t hear anything,” said Mr. Valentine testily. He disliked a
reminder of his deafness.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Cloud. “It’s the same every night. He likes some
one to sit with him——”
“Now, Mother——” Justin’s hand on her shoulder would not let her rise.
“You stay where you are! Timothy’s all right. He gets over you. He’s got
to learn to go to sleep by himself.”
Laura agreed.
“I don’t think a child is ever too young to be trained. If you once give
way——”
“Exactly!” Justin nodded approval. “It’s a question of discipline. Now,
Mother——” for Mrs. Cloud was gazing unhappily at the younger generation.
“He’ll soon learn to be quiet if you take no notice.” He was a little
impatient. It was a difficult to enjoy his strawberries while his mother
worried.
“Yes, really, Mrs. Cloud,” Laura reassured her kindly. “It’s the only
way.”
“My dear children, he’ll cry the house down.” Mrs. Cloud could not be
annoyed with Justin, or with Laura who appreciated Justin, but her voice
was plaintive. “You don’t understand. It’s so bad for a child——”
“That’s temper!” said Laura decisively. “Pure temper. He wants a lesson.
If he were mine——” The sound of crying grew and died again as a maid
opened and shut the door.
“Smack him,” said Laura firmly. “A good sound smacking! There’s nothing
like it.”
“She’s quite right, Mother, you know,” corroborated Justin. But,
agreeing with her as he did, he yet caught himself contrasting her
pretty, resolute frown with his mother’s soft distress, and thinking
that if he were Timothy he knew which he should prefer. Laura was a
sensible girl, of course ... but rather hard, in this matter of a small
kid? Yes, hard.... He didn’t like a woman to be hard.... His mother
now.... Yet it was surprising that his mother had not put up more of a
fight for Timothy.... Meekly letting herself be overborne by Laura....
Yet behind that meekness—he glanced suspiciously across the table—yes,
behind it his mother was enjoying herself ... laughing at somebody or
something.... He knew that quiet, delicious twinkle.... Now at whom or
what, he wondered, was she laughing? His uncertainty spoiled the flavour
of his strawberries.
Laura also found her dessert less toothsome than usual. Through the
snatches of conversation she caught herself alert for the faint sound
that had disturbed Mrs. Cloud. But Mrs. Cloud had apparently forgotten
again.
Of course Timothy was a naughty child ... but she did think Mrs. Cloud
might after all have gone up to him ... just for a minute.... She had
expected her to go in spite of protests. He was not crying now.... All
quiet.... She supposed he was all right.... She played with her
strawberries. She had taken far more than she wanted.... The afternoon
had given her a headache—the indecisive, disappointing afternoon.... It
was a pity to waste five fine strawberries.... Timothy would have
enjoyed them, bless his greedy little heart.... He was as quiet as a
lamb now....
“I suppose he _is_ all right?” she said aloud to no-one in particular.
She was unanswered: the table was all a-chatter. She pushed back her
chair, shook out her skirts and picked up, unobtrusively, her plate of
strawberries.
“Mrs. Cloud! I think I’ll just run up and see if he’s all right. D’you
mind?”
A nod approved her and she slipped out of the room. The bright old eyes
followed her, well-pleased.
Justin did not miss her till he had put himself to the trouble of
setting up the bridge table, a collapsible affair that he had never
noticed was easier to manage with Laura at his elbow to keep down the
legs that were down and to hold up the legs that were up. Deserted, he
found that all four legs were inclined to kick at him and make him feel
undignified. He could not help feeling annoyed with Laura, and said so
to his mother.
“Where on earth has Laura got to? Aren’t we going to have any bridge?”
The twins and the pretty cousins had rioted into the billiard-room, and
he regarded the emptied parlour blankly enough. He looked forward to his
game of bridge, with old Mr. Valentine and his mother safely partnered,
and Laura opposite himself—Laura of the intelligent questions when the
round was over, accepting reproofs in a proper spirit—Laura, returner of
leads and reserver of thirteenth cards—Laura, drilled out of all
audacities, but so beautifully reliable, the perfect partner whom he
could pride himself on having personally distilled from such raw
ingredients as a dislike of being beaten and an early passion for _Happy
Families_. It occasionally occurred to him to be surprised at the
acquiescence of Mr. Valentine in an inferior partner, never dreaming
that Laura playing bridge with Justin was a very different person from
Laura playing bridge with Gran’papa or anybody else. How should Justin
guess that she played her cards as a performing dog reads the alphabet,
guided, for all her rapt air and business-like frown, by the innumerable
hints her all-observant knowledge of him gave her. How should Justin
realize that his left hand a-fiddle with his ear meant perplexity, or
that the little push back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling and an
imaginary fly was a sure sign to her that the game was in her hands? How
should he know that his eyebrows lifted ever so faintly when he thought
her reckless, and that for him to get up and knock out his pipe against
the fire-place warned her against going spades when there were four aces
in his hand? But Laura’s sixth or Justin-sense knew it and blessed the
little tricks that helped her to give him a pleasant evening. It never
occurred to her that she was cheating, and that Justin would have been
horrified had he known.
But she paid the price of her ill ways. She had not studied Gran’papa as
she had studied Justin, and, dutifully playing double-dummy in the long
winter evenings, she contrived without effort to make him feel
unnecessarily sorry for Justin.
Gran’papa, with his host and hostess and Aunt Adela in attendance, could
dispense with his granddaughter, was mildly annoyed that Justin, fidgety
fellow, must go in search of her and that Mrs. Cloud should suggest it.
Mrs. Cloud had been pleasantly unable to imagine what was keeping Laura.
She had gone up to Timothy, but that was half an hour ago. Justin might
run up and see. Mrs. Cloud would set out the cards.
Justin found the nursery door ajar and, as he pushed it open, the thin
spear of light upon the floor widened and sharpened so that he could not
see beyond it. He spoke into the darkness—
“Laura?”
“Yes.”
“I say—isn’t he asleep yet?”
“Of course. Fast. Don’t talk so loudly.” Her undertones were tense with
triumph.
“Why don’t you come down then? We’ve been waiting——”
“Oh, I’m sorry. But he wouldn’t let me. He wouldn’t let go.” There was
the daintiest little chuckle of pride in her voice and Justin felt his
sense of injury melting. His eyes, accustomed to the half darkness, had
found her at last, a splash of black draperies on the whiteness of the
coverlet. Timothy, nominally a-bed, had forsaken his pillow for her
shoulder and there lay snug, all pink curves and inadequate
nightgown—one small fist tugging at her hair. A woolly beast was on her
lap, and a tipped plate that had held strawberries, for the green
calyxes were sliding off its rim. Her watch was on the floor, and he
thought, by the ticking of it, that the lid was open. Her bracelets were
on Timothy’s arm. He chuckled.
“You’ve been having a high old time!”
“I?” she countered blankly. “Don’t creak so, Justin. What are you
looking for?”
“The slipper. Didn’t you smack him?”
“You don’t understand children,” said Laura coldly. “He was perfectly
good. He only wanted managing.”
He surveyed the evidences of management with a twinkle, but he spoke
sympathetically—
“I say, old girl, you’ll get a stiff neck. Keep still. No, I won’t wake
him.”
With immense caution his big hands closed over the clutching, tiny
fingers, straightened them, and unwound the tangle of bright hair. Then,
slipping his arm under Timothy, he lifted him, warm and relaxed as a
kitten, back into the identical hollow in which he had lain before. For
an egg warm from the nest he could not have been more careful.
Timothy never stirred.
Laura, smoothing back her hair, watched him in silence, thinking
thoughts of her own. Then, as he turned, she held out her hands,
smiling.
“Help me up—I didn’t know I was so stiff. He won’t wake now, will he? He
was dead tired, poor little chap! I’m so sorry I forgot about the
bridge—but you see—it’s so bad to let them cry.”
“Of course,” he agreed indignantly. He too had had Timothy in his arms.
“What was the matter?”
“Just frightened. That pig of a nurse had never put him a night-light. I
shall tell Mrs. Cloud. It’s a sin not to give a child a night-light,
with bears under every chair.”
“Bears! A bear would have been a comforting beast! I read _Dracula_ when
I was seven.”
“It was hands with me,” Laura was fumbling in the wash-stand drawer.
“There was a curio, a mummy’s hand, locked up in the top drawer of the
wardrobe, at least somebody said so. It used to squeeze itself out and
come crawling down, dropping from one drawer knob to the next, like a
spider. My bed was next to the wardrobe. I used to roll myself up in the
bedclothes till I nearly choked, but even then I could feel it through
the blankets pawing at my face.”
“Oh, beastly!”
“If they’d only have let me have my kitten—but Auntie always took it
away last thing. Here are the night-lights.”
“But if you’d told——”
“One doesn’t, you know. This scrap was bitterly afraid. I knew! But do
you think it would tell me? Not it. We discussed _Rumpelstiltskin_; but
there was a bear behind our chair all the while and our reflections in
the looking-glass, and always the dark. Got some matches?”
She lit the night-light and set it afloat in its saucer. The tiny flame
turned the black room grey—a ghostly, friendless grey. Justin glanced
thoughtfully from Timothy to the swaying shadows and back again to
Timothy, a small enough sojourner in the desert of double bed. He
coughed.
“I say, Laura——”
“Yes?”
“I say, Laura—let’s give him two night-lights and damn the expense!”
“All right!”
Her voice was casual, yet there was something flame-like about her as
she followed him across the room, sheltering the lighted match with
closed hands, translucently scarlet, a living lamp that lit up her
delicate face and laughing, passionate eyes and the duller red of her
hair. And with the same flame-like restlessness she hovered about him,
enjoying, a little feverishly, her brief authority.
“No, Justin—not there. Put it in the dark corner, by the hanging
cupboard. Yes—oh, quite safe. And, Justin—if you fastened the curtain
back—right back—here, take my scarf—he would see at once there was
nothing behind it. That’s splendid. I don’t think he’ll wake though, do
you? Let’s come away quietly.”
They tiptoed out of the room.
But before the lights of the landing Laura shrank oddly, like a bright
sword slipping back into its sheath. Justin glanced at her more than
once as they went down, and, the stairway being narrow, he made more
room for them both by slipping his arm through hers. He was discovering
that he did not like Laura to look tired.
Now their curiously impersonal alliance had never needed more than a
handshake at rare intervals to confirm it. Such an unfamiliar gesture,
unconscious as he was that it had been a caress, meant, she knew, so
much from him, implied so much of intimacy and approval, that she
flushed at his touch in a pang of secret delight. Yet the fear that was
always upon her when she loved him most, not of him, but of untimely
divergence from his standards, of unwittingly jarring his fastidious and
uncertain taste, held her, now as always, passive, denying him nothing
yet not daring to respond, lest an intonation, a glance, or even the
little welcoming pressure on his arm, should qualify the security of
their relationship.
Yet, in spite of her quiescence and his unconsciousness, they contrived
to drift past the drawing-room door, and the billiard-room door, and all
the allurements of the bridge table, to agree silently to a pacing up
and down of the dim terrace, with its black shadows and window-pools of
light, and its hedge of larkspur and lilies, and Canterbury bells that
jingled hoarsely, as Laura’s skirts passing and repassing set them
a-sway.
They had left time behind them in the house. The dark, quiet minutes
lived and died unnoticed to the soft crunch of their feet on the dewy
gravel. Justin stared abstractedly before him, and Laura, her step
matching his, was filled with a sudden blessed sense of possession and
forgot utterly all the doubt and oppression of the previous weeks. She
felt herself, even as the plant-life about her, reviving, straightening,
drawing strength from the night, and its peace was poured upon her like
a precious ointment. She could even accept Justin’s silence without
anxiety, without the quick rummage of her brain to reassure herself that
she had amusement stored there for him should he show signs of
boredom—ideas, questions, hobby-horses for his restlessness to straddle.
For he was restless: through her peace she felt it stirring in him, and
longed as she always did, to content it. She slackened.
“Justin—go slower. We’re disturbing the night.” She stood still and,
half impatiently, he acquiesced.
“Isn’t it big? And not a star——”
He drew a deep breath.
“What’s that stuff—coming across in gusts—warm gusts?”
“Sweet briar. There’s a hedge——”
He sought awkwardly for words.
“It’s—it’s like a woman breathing.”
She smiled up at him.
“Why not? June’s here.”
He was intent.
“Where?”
“Here——” Her free arm flung out vaguely. “Can’t you feel her—see her?”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I can,” she said, low-voiced.
“Wish I could.” He paused, expectant, listening, till all the tiny
myriad noises that make up silence disintegrated once more. He could
hear the tinkle of the brook three fields away, and the croak of its
frogs, and the dry whisper of crickets in the flowery grass. Somewhere
in the valley a train roared and was gone again, brief in its passage as
a shooting star, and at his ear a mosquito hummed by like an echo. The
metallic strains of the village gramophone, twanging out rag-time,
reached him, all silvered over by the distance, and he felt himself
thrill absurdly to the thin, sweet sounds. Before him lay the grey,
silent garden and the black velvet of the motionless woods, but a poplar
on the lawn was faintly murmurous, like a child sighing in its sleep.
Overhead the bats wheeled and glimmered with threadlike cheepings.
He was suddenly aware of his own enormous restlessness. A muscle in his
throat was throbbing hotly: he felt thirsty and unhappy, and resentful
of the quiet night and the quiet woman at his side who did not help him
to he knew not what. He turned impatiently.
“No. There’s only us! June indeed! Come on in. It’s getting late. How
cold your fingers are——”
From a near copse an owl hooted derisively.
------------------------------------------------------------------------