LADY SPLAY'S PREOCCUPATIONS
"It's a good race to leave alone, Miranda," said Dennis Brown. "But if
you want to back something, I should put a trifle on Kinky Jane."
"Thank you, Dennis," Miranda answered absently. She was standing upon
the lawn at Gatwick with her face towards the line of bookmakers upon
the far side of the railings. These men were shouting at the full frenzy
of their voices, in spite of the heat and the dust. The ring was
crowded, and even the enclosure more than usually full.
"But you won't get any price," Harold Jupp continued, and he waved an
indignant arm towards the bookmakers. "I never saw such a crowd of
pinchers in my life."
"Thank you, Harold," Miranda replied politely. She was aware that he was
advising her, but the nature of the advice did not reach her mind. She
was staring steadily in front of her.
Dennis Brown and Harold Jupp looked at one another in alarm. They knew
well that sibylline look on the face of Miranda Brown. She was awaiting
the moment of inspiration. She was all wrapped up in expectation of it.
At times she glanced at her race-card, whilst a thoughtful frown
puckered her pretty forehead, as though the name of the winning filly
might leap out in letters of gold.
Dennis shook his head dolefully. For the one thing sure and certain was
that the fatal moment of inspiration would come to Miranda in time to
allow her to reach the railings before the start. Suddenly a name
uttered by an apoplectic gentleman in a voice breaking with fine passion
reached her ears, with the odds attached to it of nine to one.
Miranda's face cleared of all its troubles.
"Oh, why didn't I think of that before?" she said in an extremity of
self-reproach. She walked straight to the apoplectic gentleman, followed
by the unhappy pair of scientific punters.
"Callow Girl is nine to one, isn't it?"
The apoplectic gentleman smiled winningly.
"To you, missie."
Miranda laughed.
"I'll have ten pounds on it," she said, and did not hear the gasp of her
husband behind her. She made a note of the bet in her little
pocket-book.
"That's ninety pounds, anyway," she said, turning to her companions.
"They will just buy that simple little Callot frock with the
embroidery."
Yes, racing was as easy as that to Miranda Brown. She wanted a simple
little Callot frock which would cost ninety pounds, and Callow Girl was
obviously marked out to win it for her.
"Then I shall be a Callot girl," she said gaily, and as neither of her
companions enjoyed her witticism she stamped her small foot in vexation.
"Oh, how dull you both are!" she cried.
"Well, you see," Dennis rejoined, "we've had rather a bad day."
"So have I," returned Miranda indignantly. "Yet I keep up my spirits."
A look of blank amazement overspread the face of Dennis Brown. He gazed
around as one who should say, "Did you ever see anything so amazing
outside the Ark?"
Miranda corrected her remark with a laugh.
"Well, I mean I haven't won as much as I should have if I had backed
winners." For she had really mastered the science of the race-course.
She knew how to go racing. Her husband paid her losses and she kept her
winnings.
Harold Jupp took her seriously by the arm.
"You ought to go into a home, Miranda," he advised. "You really ought.
That little head was never meant for all this weighty thought."
Miranda walked across to the little stone terrace which looks down the
course.
"Don't be foolish, Harold, but go and collect Colonel Luttrell if you
can find him, whilst I see my filly win," she said. "Dennis has already
gone to find the car and we propose to start immediately this race is
over."
Miranda ascended the grass slope and saw the fillies canter down towards
the starting post. From the chatter about her she gathered that the odds
on Callow Girl had shortened. It was understood that a sum of money had
been laid on her at the last moment. She was favourite before the flag
was dropped and won by half a length. Miranda ran joyously down the
slope.
"What did I tell you, Harold? Aren't I wonderful? And have you found
Colonel Luttrell? You know Millie told us to look out for him?" she
cried all in a breath.
Luttrell had written to Lady Splay to say that he would try to motor to
Gatwick in time for the last races; and that he would look out for Jupp
and Dennis Brown, whom he had already met earlier in the week at a
dinner party given by Martin Hillyard.
"There's no sign of him," Harold Jupp answered.
There were two more races, but the party from Rackham Park did not wait
for them. They drove over the flat country through Crawley and Horsham
and came to the wooded roads between high banks where the foliage met
overhead, and to the old stone bridges over quiet streams. Harold Jupp
was home from Egypt, Dennis Brown from Salonika, and as the great downs,
with their velvet forests, seen now over a thick hedge, now in an
opening of branches like the frame of a locket, the marvel of the
English countryside in summer paid them in full for their peril and
endurance.
"I have a fortnight, Miranda," said Dennis, dropping a hand upon his
wife's. "Think of it!"
"My dear, I have been thinking of nothing else for months," she said
softly. Terrors there had been, nights and days of them, terrors there
would be, but she had a fortnight now, perfect in its season, and in the
meeting of old friends upon familiar ground--a miniature complete in
beauty, like the glimpses of the downs seen through the openings amongst
the boughs.
"Yes, a whole fortnight," she cried and laughed, and just for a second
turned her head away, since just for a second the tears glistened in her
eyes.
The car turned and twisted through the puzzle of the Petworth streets
and mounted on to the Midhurst road. The three indefatigable race-goers
found Lady Splay sitting with Martin Hillyard in the hall of Rackham
Park.
"You had a good day, I hope," she said.
"It was wonderful," exclaimed Dennis Brown. "We didn't make any money
except Miranda. But that didn't matter."
"All our horses were down the course," Harold Jupp explained. "They
weren't running in their form at all"; and he added cheerfully: "But the
war may be over before the winter, and then we'll go chasing and get it
all back."
Millicent Splay rang for tea, just as Joan Whitworth came into the hall.
"You didn't see Colonel Luttrell then?" asked Lady Splay.
"No."
"He'll come down later then." She had an eye for Joan Whitworth as she
spoke, but Joan was so utterly indifferent as to whether Colonel
Luttrell would arrive or not that she could not stifle a sigh. She had
gathered Luttrell into the party with some effort and now it seemed her
effort was to be fruitless. Joan persisted in her mood of austere
contempt for the foibles of the world. She was dressed in a gown of an
indeterminate shade between drab and sage-green, which did its best to
annul her. She had even come to sandals. There they were now sticking
out beneath the abominable gown.
"She can't ruin her complexion," thought Millicent Splay. "That's one
thing. But if she could, she would. Oh, I would love to smack her!"
Joan, quite unaware of Millie Splay's tingling fingers and indignant
eyes, sat reading "Ferishtah's Fancies." Other girls might set their
caps at the soldiers. Joan had got to be different. She had even dallied
with the pacifists. Martin Hillyard had carried away so close a
recollection of her on that afternoon when she had driven him through
the golden sunset over Duncton Hill and of the brave words she had then
spoken that he had to force himself to realise that this was indeed
she.
Millicent Splay had three preoccupations that afternoon but none pressed
upon her with so heavy a load of anxiety as her preoccupation concerning
Joan Whitworth.
Martin crossed the room to Joan and sat upon the couch beside her.
"Didn't I see you in London, Miss Whitworth, on Monday afternoon?" he
asked.
Joan met his gaze steadily.
"Did you? It was possible. I was in London on Monday. Where did you
think you saw me?"
"Coming out of a picture gallery in Green Street."
Joan did not flinch, nor drop her eyes from his.
"Yes, you saw me," she replied. Then with a challenge in her voice she
added distinctly, so that the words reached, as they were meant to
reach, every one in that room. "I was with Mario Escobar."
The room suddenly grew still. Two years ago, Martin Hillyard reflected,
Harold Jupp or Dennis would have chaffed her roundly about her conquest,
and she would have retorted with good humour. Now, no one spoke, but a
little sigh, a little movement of uneasiness came from Millie Splay.
Joan did not take her eyes from Hillyard's face. But the blood mounted
slowly over her throat and cheeks.
"Well?" she asked, and the note of challenge was a trifle more audible
in her quiet voice. And since he was challenged, Hillyard answered:
"He is a German spy."
The words smote upon all in the room like a blow. Joan herself grew
pale. Then she replied:
"People say that nowadays of every foreigner."
The moment of embarrassment was prolonged to a full minute--during which
no one spoke. Then to the relief of every one, Sir Chichester Splay
entered the hall. He had been sitting all day upon the Bench. He had to
attend the Flower Show in Chichester during the next week. Really the
life of a country notable was a dog's life.
"You are going to make a speech at Chichester, Sir Christopher?" Jupp
inquired.
"Oh no, my boy," replied Sir Chichester. "Make a speech indeed! And in
this weather! Nothing would induce me. Me for the back benches, as our
cousins across the Atlantic would say."
He spoke pompously, yet with a certain gratification as though Harold
Jupp had asked him to dignify the occasion with a speech.
"Have the evening papers not arrived yet?" he asked, looking with
suspicious eyes on Dennis Brown.
"No, I am not sitting on them this time," said Dennis.
"And Colonel Luttrell?"
After the evening papers, Sir Chichester thought politely of his guests.
Millie Splay replied with hesitation. While the others of the company
were shaking off their embarrassment, she was sinking deeper into hers.
"Colonel Luttrell has not come yet. Nor--nor--the other guest who
completes our party."
Her voice trailed off lamentably into a plea for kind treatment and
gentleness. Here was Millie Splay's second preoccupation. As it was Sir
Chichester's passion to see his name printed in the papers, so it was
Millie's to gather in the personages of the moment under her roof. She
had promised that this party should be just a small one of old friends
with Luttrell as the only new-comer. But personages were difficult to
come by at this date, since they were either deep in work or out of the
country altogether. They had to be brought down by a snap shot, and very
often the bird brought down turned out to be a remarkably inferior
specimen of his class. Millie Splay had been tempted and had fallen; and
she was not altogether easy about the quality of her bird, now on its
descent to her feet.
"I didn't know any one else was coming," said Sir Chichester, who really
didn't care how much Lady Splay gratified her passion, so long as he got
full satisfaction for his.
"No, nor any one else," said Dennis Brown severely. "He is a stranger."
"To you," replied Millie Splay, showing fight.
Harold Jupp advanced and planted himself firmly before her.
"Do you know him yourself, Lady Splay?" he asked.
"But of course I do," the poor lady exclaimed. "How absurd of you,
Harold, to ask such a question! I met him at a party when Joan and I
were in London at the beginning of this week." She caught again at her
fleeting courage. "So I invited him, and he's coming this afternoon. I
shall send the motor to meet him in an hour from now. So there's an end
of the matter."
Harold Jupp shook his head sagely.
"We must see that the plate is all locked up safely to-night."
"There! I knew it would be like this," cried Millie Splay, wringing her
hands. She remembered, from a war correspondent's article, that to
attack is the only successful defence. She turned on Jupp.
"I won't be bullied by you, Harold! He's a most charming person, with
really nice manners," she emphasised her praise of the absent guest,
"and if only you will study him whilst he is here--all of you, you will
be greatly improved at the end of your visit."
Harold Jupp was quite unimpressed by Millie Splay's outburst. He
remained severely in front of her, judge, prosecutor and jury all in
one, and all relentlessly against her.
"And what is his name?"
Lady Splay looked down and looked up.
"Mr. Albany Todd," she said.
"I don't like it," said Harold Jupp.
"No," added Dennis Brown sadly from a corner. "We can't like it, Lady
Splay."
Lady Splay turned with her most insinuating smile towards Brown.
"Oh, Dennis, do be nice and remember this isn't your house," she cried.
"You can be so unpleasant if you find any one here you don't like. Mr.
Albany Todd's quite a famous person."
Harold Jupp, of the inquiring mind, still stood looking down on Lady
Splay without any softening of his face.
"What for?" he asked.
Lady Splay groaned in despair.
"Oh, I was sure you were going to ask that. You are so unpleasant." She
put her hand to her forehead. "But I know quite well. Yes, I do." Her
face suddenly cleared. "He is a conversationalist--that's it--a great
conversationalist. He is the sort of man," she spoke as one repeating a
lesson, "who would have been welcome at the breakfast table of Mr.
Rogers."
"Rogers?" Harold Jupp asked sternly. "I don't know him."
"And probably never will, Harold, I am sorry to say," said Lady Splay
triumphantly. "Mr. Rogers was in heaven many years ago." She suddenly
changed her note and began to implore. "Oh, do be pleasant, you and
Dennis!"
Harold Jupp's mouth began to twitch, but he composed it again, with an
effort, to the stern lines befitting the occasion.
"I'll tell you what I think, Lady Splay," said he, pronouncing judgment.
"Your new guest's a Plater."
The dreadful expected word was spoken. Lady Splay broke into appeals,
denials, threats. "Oh, he isn't, he isn't!" She turned to her husband.
"Chichester, exert your authority! He's not a Plater really. He's not
right down the course. And even if he were, they've got to be polite to
him."
Sir Chichester, however, was the last man who could be lured into the
expression of a definite opinion.
"My dear, I never interfere in the arrangements of the house. You have
your realm. I have mine. I am sure those papers are being kept in the
servants' hall," and he left the room hurriedly.
"Oh, how mean men are!" cried Millie; and they all began to laugh.
Lady Splay saw a glimpse of hope in their laughter and became much more
cheerful.
"As you are not racing, dear," she said to Joan, "he will be quite a
pleasant companion for you."
Sir Chichester returned with the evening papers. Dennis and Miranda and
Harold Jupp rose to go upstairs and change into flannels; and suddenly,
a good hour before his time, Harper, the butler, announced:
"Mr. Albany Todd."
Mr. Albany Todd was a stout, consequential personage, and ovoid in
appearance. Thin legs broadened out to very wide hips, and from the hips
he curved in again to a bald and shiny head, which in its turn curved
inwards to a high, narrow crown. Lady Splay casting a look of appeal
towards her refractory young guests hurried forward to meet him.
"This is my husband." She presented him to the others. "I was going to
send the motor-car to meet the seven o'clock train."
"Oh, thank you, Lady Splay," Mr. Albany Todd returned in a booming
voice. "I have been staying not more than twenty miles from here, with a
dear old friend, a rare and inestimable being, Lord Bilberry, and he was
kind enough to send me in."
"What, old man Bilberry," cried Harold Jupp. "Isn't he balmy?"
"Balmy, sir?" Mr. Todd asked in surprise. "He takes the air every
morning, if that is what you mean." He turned again to Lady Splay. "He
keeps the most admirable table. You must know him, Lady Splay. I will
see to it."
"Thank you," said Millie Splay humbly.
"Ah, muffins!" said Mr. Albany Todd with glistening eyes. He ate one and
took another. "These are really as good as the muffins I ate at a
wonderful week-end party a fortnight ago."
The chatter of the others ceased. The great conversationalist, it
seemed, was off. Miranda, Dennis, Harold Jupp, Sir Chichester, even Joan
looked up with expectation.
"Yes," said Lady Splay, encouraging him. She looked around at her
guests. "Now you shall see," she seemed to say.
"How we laughed! What sprightly talk! The fine flavour of that party is
quite incommunicable. Just dear old friends, you see, intimate,
congenial friends."
Mr. Albany Todd stopped. It appeared that he needed a question to be put
to him. Lady Splay dutifully put it.
"And where did this party take place, Mr. Albany Todd?"
Mr. Albany Todd smiled and dusted the crumbs from his knees.
"At the Earl of Wimborough's little place in the north. Do you know the
Earl of Wimborough? No? You must, dear lady! I will see to it."
"Thank you," said Millie Splay.
Harold Jupp looked eagerly at the personage, and said, "I hope
Wimborough won't go jumping this winter."
"Jumping!" cried Mr. Albany Todd turning indignantly. "I should think
not indeed! Jumping! Why, he is seventy-three!"
He was utterly scandalised that any one should attribute the possibility
of such wayward behaviour to the venerable Earl. In his agitation he ate
another muffin. After all, if the nobleman did go jumping in the winter
why should this young and horsey man presume to criticise him.
"Harold Jupp was drawing a distinction between flat racing and
steeple-chasing, Mr. Albany Todd," Sir Chichester suavely explained.
"Oh, I see." Mr. Albany Todd was appeased. He turned a condescending
face upon Joan Whitworth.
"And what are you reading, Miss Whitworth?"
"What ho!" interposed Harold Jupp.
Joan shot at him a withering glance.
"It wouldn't interest you." She smiled on Mr. Albany Todd. "It's
Browning."
"Well, that's just where you are wrong," returned Jupp. "Browning's the
only poet I can stick. There's a ripping thing of his I learnt at
school."
"'I sprang to the saddle and Joris and he,
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.'"
"Oh," exclaimed Miranda eagerly, "a horse race!"
"Nothing of the sort, Miranda. I am thoroughly ashamed of you," said
Harold in reproof. "It's 'How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to
Aix.'"
Here Joan intervened disdainfully.
"But that's not Browning!"
Lady Splay looked perplexed.
"Are you sure, Joan?"
Joan tossed her head.
"Of course, it's Browning all right," she explained, "but it's not
Browning if you understand me."
The explanation left that company mystified. Harold Jupp shook his head
mournfully at Joan, and tapped his forehead.
"Excessive study, Joan, has turned that little head. The moment I saw
you in sandals I said to myself, 'Joan couldn't take the hill.'"
Joan wrinkled her nose, and made a grimace at him. What rejoinder she
would have made no one was to know. For Mr. Albany Todd finding himself
unduly neglected burst into the conversation with a complete
irrelevance.
"I am so happy. I shot a stag last autumn."
Both Dennis Brown and Harold Jupp turned to the great conversationalist
with real interest.
"How many stone?" asked Dennis.
"I used a rifle," replied Mr. Albany Todd coldly. He did not like to be
made fun of; and suddenly a ripple of clear laughter broke deliciously
from Joan.
Lady Splay looked agitatedly around for succour. Oh, what a mistake she
had made in bringing Mr. Albany Todd into the midst of these ribald
young people. And after all--she had to admit it ruefully, he was a bit
of a Plater. Dennis Brown, however, hurried to the rescue. He came
across the room to Joan, and sat down at her side.
"I haven't had a word with you, Joan."
"No," she answered.
"And how's the little book going on? Do tell me! I won't laugh, upon my
word."
Joan herself tried not to. "Oh, pig, pig!" she exclaimed, but she got no
further in her anathema for Miranda drew up a stool, and sat in
admiration before her.
"Yes, do tell us," she pleaded. "It's all so wonderful."
Miranda, however, was never to hear. Mr. Albany Todd leaned forward with
an upraised forefinger, and a smile of keen discernment.
"You are writing a book, Miss Whitworth," he said, as if he had
discovered the truth by his own intuition, and expected her to deny the
impeachment. "Ah, but you are! And I see that you _can_ write one."
"Now, how?" asked Harold Jupp.
Mr. Albany Todd waved the question aside. "The moment I entered the
hall, and saw Miss Whitworth, I said to myself, 'There's a book there!'
Yes, I said that. I knew it! I know women."
Mr. Albany Todd closed his eyelids, and peeped out through the narrowest
possible slits in the cunningest fashion. "Some experience you know. I
am the last man to boast of it. A certain almost feminine
sensibility--and there you have my secret. I read the character of women
in their eyebrows. A woman's eyebrows. Oh, how loud they speak! I looked
at Miss Whitworth's eyebrows, and I exclaimed, 'There is a book
there--and I will read it!'"
Joan flamed into life. She clasped her hands together.
"Oh, will you?" The question was half wonder, half prayer.
No man could have shown a more charming condescension than did Mr.
Albany Todd at this moment.
"Indeed, I will. I read one book a year--never more. A few sentences in
bed in the morning, and a few sentences in bed at night. Yours shall be
my book for 1923." He took a little notebook and a pencil from his
pocket. "Now what title will it have?"
"'A Woman's Heart, and Who Broke It,'" replied Joan, blushing from her
temples to her throat.
Miranda repeated the title in an ecstasy of admiration, and asked the
world at large: "Isn't it all wonderful?"
"'And Who Broke It,'" quoted Mr. Albany Todd as he wrote the title down.
He put his pocket-book away.
"The volume I am reading now----"
"Yes?" said Joan eagerly. With what master was she to find herself in
company? She was not to know.
"----was given to me exquisitely bound by a very dear friend of mine,
now alas! in precarious health!--the Marquis of Bridlington," said Mr.
Albany Todd--an audible groan from Harold Jupp; an imploring glance from
Millie Splay, and to her immense relief the butler ushered in Harry
Luttrell. He was welcomed by Millie Splay, presented to Sir Chichester,
and surrounded by his friends. He was a trifle leaner than of old, and
there were lines now where before there had been none. His eyes, too,
had the queer, worn and sunken look which was becoming familiar in the
eyes of the young men on leave. Joan Whitworth watched him as he
entered, carelessly--for perhaps a second. Then her book dropped from
her hand upon the carpet--that book which she had so jealously read a
few minutes back. Now it lay where it had fallen. She leaned forward, as
though above all she wished to hear the sound of his voice. And when she
heard it, she drew in a little breath. He was speaking and laughing with
Sir Chichester, and the theme was nothing more important than Sir
Chichester's Honorary Membership of the Senga Mess.
"Lucky fellow!" cried Sir Chichester. "No trouble for you to get into
the papers, eh! Publicity waits on you like a valet."
"But that's just the kind of valet I can't afford in my profession,"
said Harry.
The conversation was all trivial and customary. But Joan Whitworth
leaned forward with a light upon her face that had never yet burnt
there. Colonel Luttrell was presented to Mr. Albany Todd, who was most
kind and condescending. Joan looked suddenly down at her bilious frock,
and the horror of her sandals was something she could hardly bear. They
would turn to her next. Yes, they would turn to her! She looked
desperately towards the great staircase with its broad, shallow steps
which ran up round two sides of the hall. Millie Splay was actually
beginning to turn to her, when Dennis Brown came unconsciously to her
rescue.
"We looked out for you at Gatwick," he said.
"I only just reached the race course in time for the last race," said
Harry Luttrell. "Luckily for me."
"Why luckily?" asked Harold Jupp in surprise.
"Because I backed the winner," replied Luttrell.
The indefatigable race-goers gathered about him a little closer; and
Joan Whitworth rose noiselessly from her chair.
"Which horse won?" asked Harold Jupp.
"Loman!" Harold Jupp stared at Dennis Brown. Incredulity held them as in
bonds.
"But he couldn't win!" they both cried in a breath.
"He did, you know, and at a long price."
"What on earth made you back him?" asked Dennis Brown.
"Well," Luttrell answered, "he was the only white horse in the race."
Miranda uttered a cry of pleasure. She recognised a brother. "That's an
awfully good reason," she cried. But science fell with a crash. Dennis
Brown took his "Form at a Glance" from his pocket, and sadly began to
tear the pages across. Harold Jupp looked on at that act of sacrilege.
"It doesn't matter," he said, and offered his invariable consolation.
"Flat racing's no use. We'll go jumping in the winter."
But Harold Jupp was never again to go jumping in the winter. Long before
steeple chasing began that year, he was lying out on the flat land
beyond the Somme, with a bullet through his heart.
Dennis Brown returned "Form at a Glance" to his pocket; and Millie Splay
drew Harry Luttrell away from the group.
"I want to introduce you to Joan Whitworth," she said, and she turned to
the chair in which Joan had been sitting a few moments ago.
It was empty.
"Why, where in the world has Joan gone to?" she exclaimed.
"She has fled," explained Jupp. "Joan saw his 'Form at a Glance,'
without any book. She saw that he was incapable of the higher Life, and
she has gone."
"Nonsense, Harold," cried Millicent Splay in vexation. She turned
towards the stairs, and she gave a little gasp. A woman was standing on
the second step from the floor. But it was not Joan, it was Stella
Croyle.
"I thought you had such a bad headache," said Lady Splay, after a
perceptible pause.
"It's better now, thank you," said Stella, and coming down the remaining
steps, she advanced towards Harry.
"How do you do, Colonel Luttrell?" she asked.
For a moment he was taken aback. Then with the blood mounting in his
face, he took a step forwards and shook hands with her easily.
"So you know one another!" said Lady Splay.
"We have known each other for a long while," returned Stella Croyle.
So that was why Stella Croyle had proposed herself for the week! Lady
Splay had been a little surprised; so persistently had Stella avoided
anything in the shape of a party. But this time Stella had definitely
wished to come, and Millie Splay in her loyalty had not hesitated to
welcome her. But she had been a little curious. Stella's visit, indeed,
was the third, though the least, of her preoccupations. The Ball on the
Thursday of next week at the Willoughby's! Well, Stella was never
lacking in tact. That would arrange itself. But as Millie Splay looked
at her, recognised her beauty, her eager advance to Harry Luttrell, and
Harry Luttrell's embarrassment, she said to herself, for quite other
reasons:
"If I had guessed why she wanted to come, nothing would have persuaded
me to have her."
Millie Splay had more reason to repeat the words before the week was
out.