THE FIRST REAPING
At breakfast, some hours later, Magda was in a curiously petulant and
uncertain mood. To some extent her fractiousness was due to natural
reaction after the emotional excitement of the previous evening.
Granted the discovery of the Garden of Eden, and add to this the almost
immediate intrusion of outsiders therein--for everybody else is an
“outsider” to the pair in possession--and any woman might be forgiven
for suffering from slightly frayed nerves the following day. And
in Magda’s case she had been already rather keyed up by finding the
preceding few days punctuated by unwelcome and unaccustomed happenings.
They all dated from the day of the accident which had befallen her in
the fog. It almost seemed as though that grey curtain of fog had been
a symbol of the shadow which was beginning to dog her footsteps--the
shadow which stern moralists designate “unpleasant consequences.”
First there had been Michael Quarrington’s plain and candid utterance of
his opinion of her. Then had followed Davilof’s headlong wooing and
his refusal, when thwarted, to play for her again. He, too, had not
precisely glossed things over in that tirade of accusation and reproach
which he had levelled at her!
And now, just when it seemed as though she had put these other ugly
happenings behind her, Kit Raynham, who for the last six months had been
one of the little court of admirers which surrounded her, had seen
fit to complicate matters by vanishing without explanation; while his
mother, in an absurd maternal flurry of anxiety as to what had become of
him, must needs write to her as though it inevitably followed that she
was responsible for his disappearance!
Magda was conscious of an irritated sense of injury, which Gillian’s
rather apprehensive little comments on the absence of further news
concerning young Raynham scarcely tended to allay.
“Oh, don’t be tiresome, Gillian!” she exclaimed. “The boy’s all right. I
expect he’s been having a joy-day--which has prolonged itself a bit.”
“It seems he hasn’t been seen or heard of since the day before
yesterday,” responded Gillian gravely. “They’re afraid he may--may have
committed suicide”--she brought out the word with a rush. “They’ve been
dragging the lake at his home.”
Magda flared.
“Where did you hear all this--this nonsense? You said nothing about it
last night.”
“Lady Raynham told me. She rang up half an hour ago--before you were
down--to ask if by any chance we had had any news of him,” replied
Gillian gently.
Magda pushed away her plate and, leaving her breakfast unfinished, moved
restlessly across to the window.
“There’s nothing about it in this morning’s paper, is there?” she asked.
Her tone sounded apprehensive.
Gillian’s eyes grew suddenly compassionate.
“Yes. There is--something,” she returned, laying her hand quickly over
the newspaper as though to withhold it.
But Magda swung round and snatched it from her. Gillian half rose from
her chair.
“Don’t look--don’t read it, Magda!” she entreated hastily.
The other made no response. Instead, she deliberately searched the
columns of the paper until she found a paragraph headed: Disappearance
of the Honourable Kit Raynham.
No exception could reasonably be taken to the paragraph in question. It
gave a brief resume of Kit Raynham’s short life up to date, referred
to the distinguished career which had been predicted for him, and, in
mentioning that he was one of the set of brilliant young folks of whom
Magda Wielitzska, the well-known dancer, was the acknowledged leader,
it conveyed a very slightly veiled hint that he, in particular, was
accounted one of her most devoted satellites. The sting of the paragraph
lay in its tail:
“It will be tragic indeed if it should eventually transpire that a young
life so full of exceptional promise has foundered in seas that only a
seasoned swimmer should essay.”
It was easy enough for Magda to read between the lines. If anything had
happened to Kit Raynham--if it were ultimately found that he had taken
his own life--society at large was prepared to censure her as more or
less responsible for the catastrophe!
Side by side with this paragraph was another--a panegyric on the
perfection of Wielitzska’s dancing as a whole, and dwelling particularly
upon her brilliant performance in _The Swan-Maiden_.
To Magda, the juxtaposition of the two paragraphs was almost
unendurable. That this supreme success should be marred and overshadowed
by a possible tragedy! She flung the newspaper to the ground.
“I think--I think the world’s going mad!” she exclaimed in a choked
voice.
Gillian looked across at her. Intuitively she apprehended the mental
conflict through which her friend was passing--the nervous apprehension
and resentment of the artiste that any extraneous happening should
infringe upon her success contending with the genuine regret she would
feel if some untoward accident had really befallen Kit Raynham. And
behind both these that strange, aloof detachment which seemed part of
the very fibre of her nature, and which Gillian knew would render it
almost impossible for her to admit or even realise that she was in any
way responsible for Kit Raynham’s fate--whatever it might be.
Of what had taken place in the winter-garden at Lady Arabella’s Gillian
was, of course, in ignorance, and she had therefore no idea that the
intrusion of Kit Raynham’s affairs at this particular juncture was
doubly unwelcome. But she could easily see that Magda was shaken out of
her customary sang-froid.
“Don’t worry, Magda.” The words sprang consolingly to her lips, but
before she could give them utterance Melrose opened the door and
announced that Lady Raynham was in the library. Would Mademoiselle
Wielitzska see her?
The old man’s face wore a look of concern. They had heard all about the
disappearance of Lady Raynham’s son in the servants’ hall--the evening
papers had had it. Moreover, it always seems as though there exists
a species of wireless telepathy by which the domestic staff of any
household, great or small, speedily becomes acquainted with everything
good, bad, or indifferent--and particularly bad!--which affects the
folks “above-stairs.”
A brief uncomfortable pause succeeded Melrose’s announcement; then Magda
walked quietly out of the room into the library.
Lady Raynham rose from a low chair near the fire. She was a little,
insignificant woman, rather unfashionably attired, with neat grey
hair and an entirely undistinguished face, but as she stood there,
motionless, waiting for Magda to come up to her, she was quite
unconsciously impressive--transformed by that tragic dignity with which
great sorrow invests even the most commonplace of people.
Her thin, middle-aged features looked drawn and puckered by long hours
of strain. Her eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness. They searched
Magda’s face accusingly before she spoke.
“What have you done to my son?”
“Where is he?” Magda’s answering question came in almost breathless
haste.
“You don’t know!”
Lady Raynham sat down suddenly. Her legs were trembling beneath her--had
been trembling uncontrollably even as she nerved herself to stand and
confront the woman at whose door she laid the ruin of her son. But now
the spurt of nervous energy was exhausted, and she sank back into her
chair, thankful for its support.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t even know
whether he is alive or dead.”
She fumbled in the wrist-bag she carried, and withdrawing a crumpled
sheet of notepaper held it out. Magda took it from her mechanically,
recognising, with a queer tightening of the muscles of her throat, the
boyish handwriting which sprawled across it.
“You want me to read this?” she asked.
“You’ve _got_ to read it,” replied the other harshly. “It is written to
you. I found it--after he’d gone.”
Her gaze fastened on Magda’s face and clung there unwaveringly while she
read the letter.
It was a wild, incoherent outpouring--the headlong confession of a
boy’s half-crazed infatuation for a beautiful woman. A pathetic
enough document in its confused medley of passionate demand and boyish
humbleness. The tragic significance of it was summed up in a few lines
at the end--lines which seemed to burn themselves into Magda’s brain:
“I suppose it was cheek my hoping you could ever care, but you were so
sweet to me you made me think you did. I know now that you don’t--that
you never really cared a brass farthing, and I’m going right away. The
same world can’t hold us both any longer. So I’m going out of it.”
Magda looked up from the scrawled page and met the gaze of the sad,
merciless eyes that were fixed on her.
“Couldn’t you have left him alone?” Lady Raynham spoke in a low,
difficult voice. “You have men enough to pay you compliments and run
your errands. I’d only Kit. Couldn’t you have let me keep him? What did
you want with my boy’s love. You’d nothing to give him in return?”
“I had!” protested Magda indignantly. “You’re wrong. I was very fond of
Kit. I gave him my friendship.”
Her indignation was perfectly sincere. To her, it seemed that Lady
Raynham was taking up a most unwarrantable attitude.
“Friendship?” repeated the latter with bitter scorn. “Friendship? Then
God help the boys to whom you give it! Before Kit ever met you he was
the best and dearest son a woman could have had. He was keen on his
work--wild to get on. And he was so gifted it looked as if there were
nothing in his profession that he might not do. . . . Then you came! You
turned his head, filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else--work,
duty, everything that matters to a lad of two-and-twenty. You spoilt
his chances--spoilt his whole life. And now I’ve lost him. I don’t know
where he is--whether he is dead or alive.” She paused. “I think he’s
dead,” she said dully.
“I’m sorry if--”
“Sorry!” Lady Raynham interrupted hysterically. Her composure was giving
way under the strain of the interview. “Sorry if my son has taken his
own life--”
“He hasn’t,” asserted Magda desperately. “He was far too sensible
and--and ordinary.”
“Yes. Till you turned his head!”
Lady Raynham rose and walked towards the door as though she had said all
she came to say. Magda sprang to her feet.
“I won’t--I won’t be blamed like this!” she exclaimed rebelliously.
“It’s unfair! Can I help it if your son chose to fall in love with
me? You--you might as well hold me responsible because he is tall or
short--or good or bad!”
The other stopped suddenly on her way to the door as though arrested by
that last defiant phrase.
“I do,” she said sternly. “It’s women like you who are responsible
whether men are good--or bad.”
In silence Magda watched the small, unassuming figure disappear through
the doorway. She felt powerless to frame a reply, nor had Lady Raynham
waited for one. If her boy were indeed dead--dead by his own hand--she
had at least cleared his memory, laid the burden of the mad, rash act he
had committed on the shoulders that deserved to bear it.
Normally a shy, retiring kind of woman, loathing anything in the nature
of a scene, the tragedy which had befallen her son had inspired Alicia
Raynham with the reckless courage of a tigress defending its young.
And now that the strain was over and she found herself once more in her
brougham, driving homeward with the familiar clip-clop of the fat old
carriage-horse’s hoofs in her ears, she shrank back against the cushions
marvelling at the temerity which had swept her into the Wielitzska’s
presence and endowed her with words that cut like a two-edged sword.
Like a two-edged sword in very truth! Lady Raynham’s final thrust,
stabbing at her with its stern denunciation, brought back vividly to
Magda Michael Quarrington’s bitter speech--“I’ve no place for your kind
of woman.”
Side by side with the recollection came a sudden dart of fear. How would
all this stir about Kit Raynham--the impending gossip and censure
which seemed likely to be accorded her--affect him? Would he judge her
again--as he had judged her before?
She was conscious of a fresh impulse of anger against Lady Raynham. She
wanted to forget the past--blot it all out of her memory--and out of the
memory of the man whose contempt had hurt her more than anything in her
whole life before. And now it seemed as though everything were combining
to emphasise those very things which had earned his scorn.
But, apart from a certain apprehension as to how the whole affair might
appear in Michael’s eyes, she was characteristically unimpressed by her
interview with Lady Raynham.
“I don’t see,” she told Gillian indignantly, “that I’m to blame because
the boy lost his head. His mother was--stupid.”
Gillian regarded her consideringly. To her, the whole pitiful tragedy
was so clear. She could envisage the point of view of Kit’s mother only
too well, and sympathise with it. Yet, understanding Magda better than
most people did, she realised that the dancer was hardly as culpable as
Lady Raynham thought her.
Homage and admiration were as natural to Magda as the air she breathed,
and it made very little impression on her whether a man more or less
lost his heart to her or not. Moreover, as Gillian recognised it was
almost inevitable that this should be the case. The influences by
which Magda had been surrounded during the first ten plastic years of
childhood had all tended to imbue her with the idea that men were only
to be regarded as playthings, and that from the simple standpoint of
self-defence it was wiser not to take them seriously. If you did,
they invariably showed a disposition to become tyrants. Gillian made
allowance for this; nevertheless she had no intention of letting Magda
down lightly.
“I believe you were created without a soul,” she informed her candidly.
Magda smiled a little.
“Do you know you’re the second person to tell me that?” she said. “The
idea’s not a bit original. Michael Quarrington told me the same thing in
other words. Perhaps, perhaps it’s true.”
“Of course, it’s not true!” Gillian contradicted her warmly. “I only
said it because I was so out of patience with you.”
“Everybody seems to be hating me rather badly just now.” Magda spoke
somewhat forlornly. “And yet--I don’t think I’m any different from
usual.”
“I don’t think you are,” retorted Gillian. “But it’s your ‘usual’
that’s so disastrous. You go sailing through life like a beautiful cold
star--perfectly impassive and heartless.”
“I’m not heartless. I love you--and Marraine. You surely don’t blame me
because I don’t ‘fall in love’? . . . I don’t _want_ to fall in love,”
she added with sudden vehemence.
“I wish to goodness you would!” exclaimed Gillian impatiently. “If only
you cared enough about anybody to do something really outrageous--run
off with another woman’s husband, even--I believe I should respect you
more than I do now.”
Magda laughed.
“Gillyflower, I’m afraid you’ve no morals. And you here in the capacity
of watchdog and duenna, too!”
“It’s all very well to make a joke of everything. But I know--I’m sure
this business about Kit Raynham is going to be more serious than you
think. It’s bound to affect you.”
Magda stared at her blankly.
“What nonsense! Affect me--why should it? How can it?”
“How can it?”--with bitterness. “Everyone will talk--more than usual!
You can’t smash up people’s only sons--not lovable, popular boys like
Kit--without there being a fuss. You--you should have left a kid like
that alone.”
And she went out of the room, banging the door behind her like a big
full-stop.
Gillian’s prophecy proved only too accurate. People did talk. Kit
Raynham had been a general favourite in society, and his disappearance,
taken in conjunction with the well-known fact of his infatuation for
Magda, created a sensation.
Even when the theory of suicide was finally disproved by his mother’s
receiving a letter from Australia, whither it appeared, the boy
had betaken himself and his disappointment, people seemed at first
disinclined to overlook Magda’s share in the matter. For a time even
her immense prestige as a dancer suffered some eclipse, but this, with a
performer of her supreme artistry, was bound to be only a passing phase.
The world will always condone where it wants to be amused. And--now
that the gloom of young Raynham’s supposed suicide was lifted from the
affair--there was a definite aroma of romance about it which was not
without its appeal to the younger generation.
So that gradually the pendulum swung back and Magda’s audiences
were once again as big and enthusiastic as ever. Perhaps even more
enthusiastic, since the existence of a romantic and dramatic attachment
sheds a certain glamour about any well-known artiste.
All of which affected Magda herself comparatively little--though it
irritated her that her actions should be criticised. What did affect
her, however, absorbing her thoughts to the exclusion of all other
matters, was that since the night of Lady Arabella’s reception she had
received neither word nor sign from Michael Quarrington.
She could not understand it. Had he been a different type of man she
might have credited him with having yielded to a sudden impulse, kissing
her as some men will kiss women--lightly and without giving or asking
more than the moment’s caress.
But Quarrington was essentially not the man to be carried away by a
passing fancy. That he had cared for her against his will, against his
better judgment, Magda could not but realise. _But he had cared!_ She
was sure of it. And he was the only man for whom her own pulses had ever
beaten one whit the faster.
His touch, the sound of his voice, the swift, hawk-like glance of those
grey eyes of his, had power to wake in her a vague tumult of emotion at
once sweet and frightening; and in that brief moment in the “Garden of
Eden,” when he had held her in his arms, she had been tremulously ready
to yield--to surrender to the love which claimed her.
But the days had multiplied to weeks and still the silence which had
followed remained unbroken. As far as Magda was concerned, Michael
seemed to have walked straight out of her life, and she was too
proud--and too much hurt--to inquire amongst her friends for news of
him. It was her godmother who finally tersely enlightened her as to his
whereabouts.
Characteristically, Lady Arabella had withheld her judgment regarding
the Kit Raynham affair until it was found that he had betaken himself
off to Australia. But when the whole of the facts were evident, she
allowed nothing--neither the romantic dreams of the episode nor her
own warm affection for her god-daughter--to obscure her clear-sighted
vision.
Magda twisted her slim shoulders irritably when taken to task.
“I think I’m tired of being blamed for Kit Raynham’s idiocy,” she said,
a note of resentment in her voice. “No one seems to consider my side of
the question! I was merely nice to him in an ordinary sort of way, and
there wasn’t the least need for him to have chucked up everything and
rushed off to the other side of the world like that. _I_ couldn’t help
it!”
Lady Arabella made a gesture of despair.
“I don’t believe you could,” she acknowledged helplessly. “I’m really
beginning to have a sneaking sympathy with poor Hugh for shelving the
responsibility of having brought you into the world. But at least you
might refrain from baby-snatching!” she added wrathfully.
Magda protested.
“Marraine! You’re abominable! Kit is four-and-twenty if he’s a day. And
I’m barely twenty.”
“That has nothing whatever to do with it,” retorted Lady Arabella
incisively. “Kit is a babe in arms, while you--you’re as old as Eve.”
She paused. “Anyway, you’ve broken his heart and driven him to the ends
of the earth.”
“Where he’ll probably paste together the pieces and offer the repaired
article to someone else.”
Lady Arabella looked up sharply. Cynicism was usually far enough away
from Magda. She was too full of the joy of life and of the genuine
delight an artist finds in his art to have place for it. Egoist she
might be, with the unthinking egotism of youth, irresponsible in her
gay acceptance of the love and admiration showered on her, but there
was nothing bitter or sour in her composition. Lady Arabella, seeking
an explanation for the unwonted, cast her mind back on the events of the
last few weeks--and smiled to herself.
“I suppose you know you’ve driven someone else out of England besides
Kit Raynham?” she said.
“Whom do you mean?”
Magda spoke mechanically. A faint colour crept up under her white skin,
and she avoided her godmother’s keen gaze.
“That charming artist-man--Michael Quarrington.”
“Has--he left England?” Magda’s throat felt suddenly parched. Then
with an effort she went on: “You’re surely not going to put the entire
steamship’s passenger list down to me, Marraine?”
“Only those names for which I happen to know you’re responsible.”
“You don’t know about Saint Mi--about Mr. Quarrington. It’s mere
guesswork on your part.”
“Most of the things we really know in life are mere guesswork,” replied
Lady Arabella sagely. “But in this case----”
“Yes. In this case?”
There was a long pause. Then Lady Arabella answered slowly:
“In this case I’m speaking from first-hand information.”
Magda’s slender figure tautened. She moistened her lips.
“Do you mean that Mr. Quarrington told you he was leaving England on my
account?” she asked.
“I don’t often meddle, Magda--not really meddle.” Lady Arabella’s voice
sounded unusually deprecating. “But I did in this instance. Because--oh,
my dear, he’s the only man I’ve ever seen to whom I’d be glad to give
you up. He’d--he’d manage you, Magda.”
Magda’s head was turned away, but the sudden scarlet flush that flew up
into her face surged over even the white nape of her neck.
“And he loves you,” went on Lady Arabella, her voice softening
incredibly. “It’s only a man here or there who really _loves_ a woman,
my dear. Most of them whip up a hotch-potch of quite commonplace
feelings with a dash of passion and call it love, while all they
actually want is a good housekeeper and presentable hostess and someone
to carry on the name.”
No answer came from Magda, unless a stifled murmur could be regarded as
such, and after a few minutes Lady Arabella spoke again, irritably.
“Why couldn’t you have left Kit alone?”
Magda raised her head.
“What has that to do with it?”
“Everything”--succinctly. “I told you I meddled. Michael Quarrington
came to see me before he went away--and I know precisely why he left
England. I asked him to go and see you before he sailed.”
“What did he say?” The words were almost inaudible.
Lady Arabella hesitated. Then she quoted quickly: “‘There is no need.
She will understand.’”
To Magda the brief sentence held all the finality of the bolting and
barring of a door. So Quarrington, like everyone else, had heard the
story of Kit Raynham! And he had judged and sentenced her.
That night in the winter-garden he had been on the verge of trusting
her, ready to believe in her, and she had vowed to herself that she
would prove worthy of his trust. She had meant never to fall short of
all that Michael demanded in the woman he loved. And now, before she had
had a chance to justify his hardly-won belief, the past had risen up to
destroy her, surging over her like a great tidal wave and sweeping away
the whole fabric of the happiness she had visioned.
She had not wholly realised before that she loved. But she knew now. As
the empty weeks dragged along she learned what it meant to long for the
beloved one’s presence--the sound and touch of voice or hand--with an
aching, unassuagable longing that seems to fuse body and soul into a
single entity of pain.
Outwardly she appeared unchanged. Her pride was indomitable, and
exactly how much Michael’s going had meant to her not even Gillian
suspected--though the latter was too sensitive and sympathetic not to
realise that Magda had passed through some experience which had touched
her keenly. Ignorant of the incidents that had occurred on the night of
Lady Arabella’s party, she was disposed to assign the soreness of spirit
she discerned in her friend to the general happenings which had followed
from the Raynham episode. And amongst these she gave a certain definite
place to the abrupt withdrawal of Quarrington’s friendship, and
resented it. She felt curiously disappointed in the man. With such fine
perceptive faculty as he possessed she would have expected him to be
more tolerant--more merciful in his judgment.
Once she had tentatively approached the subject, but Magda had clearly
indicated that she had no intention of discussing it.
Not even to Gillian, whom she had gradually come to look upon as her
closest friend, could Magda unveil the wound to her pride. No one, no
one in the whole world, should know that she had been ready to give
her love--and that the offering had been silently, but none the less
decisively, rejected.
Diane’s warning now found its echo in her own heart: “Never give your
heart to any man. If you do he will only break it for you--break it into
little pieces like the glass scent-bottle which you dropped yesterday.”
“She was right,” Magda told herself bitterly. “A thousand times right!”