Mrs. Cricklander felt it would be discreet and in perfect taste if she
announced her intention of going off to Carlsbad the week after her
engagement was settled--she was always most careful of decorum. And, if
the world of her friends thought John Derringham was well enough to be
making love to her in the seclusion of her own house, it would be much
wiser for her to show that she should always remain beyond the breath of
any gossip.
In her heart she was bored to tears. For nearly the whole of June she
had been cooped up at Wendover--for more than half the time without even
parties of visitors to keep her company--and she loathed being alone.
She had no personal resources and invariably at such times smoked too
much and got agitated nerves in consequence.
John Derringham--strong and handsome, with his prestige and his
brilliant faculties--was a conquest worth parading chained to her
chariot wheels. But John Derringham, feeble, unable to walk, his ankle
in splints and plaster of Paris, and still suffering from headaches
whenever the light was strong, was simply a weariness to her--nothing
more nor less.
So that, until he should be restored to his usual captivating vigor, it
was much better for her pleasure to leave him to his complete recovery
alone, now that she had got him securely in her keeping.
Arabella could ask her mother down and keep house and see that he had
everything in the world that he wanted--and there were the devoted
nurses. And, in short, her doctor had said she must have her usual cure,
and that was the end of the matter!
She had only made him the most fleeting visits during the week. He had
really been ill after the fever caused by the champagne. And she had
been exquisitely gentle and not too demonstrative. She had calculated
the possibility of his backing out under the plea of his health, so she
determined not to give him a chance to have the slightest excuse by
overtiring him.
No one could have better played the part of devoted, understanding
friend who by excess of love had been betrayed into one lapse of
passionate outburst, and now wished only to soothe and comfort.
"She is a good sort," John Derringham thought, after her first visit.
"She will let me down easy in any case," and the ceasing of his anxiety
about his financial position comforted him greatly.
The next time she came and sat by his bed, a vision of fresh summer
laces and chiffons, he determined to make the position clear to her.
She always bent and kissed him with airy grace, then sat down at a
discreet distance. She felt he was not overanxious to caress her, and
preferred that the rendering of this impossible should come from her
side. Indeed, unless kisses were necessary to gain an end, she did not
care for them herself--stupid, contemptible things, she thought them!
John Derringham would have touched the hearts of most women as he lay
there, but Cecilia Cricklander had not this tiresome appendage, only the
business brain and unemotional sensibilities of her grandfather the pork
butcher. She did realize that her _fiancé_, even there with the black
silk handkerchief wound round his head and his face and hands deadly
pale and fragile-looking, was still a most arrogant and
distinguished-looking creature, and that his eyes, with their pathetic
shadows dimming the proud glance in them, were wonderfully attractive.
But she was not touched especially by his weakness. She disliked
suffering and never wanted to be made aware of it.
John Derringham went straight into the subject which was uppermost in
his thoughts. He asked her to listen to him patiently, and stated his
exact financial situation. She must then judge if she found it worth
while to marry him; he would not deceive her about one fraction of it.
She laughed lightly when he had ended--and there was something which
galled him in her mirth.
"It is all a ridiculous nothing," she said. "Why, I can pay off the
whole thing with only the surplus I invest every year from my income!
Your property is quite good security--if I want any. We shall probably
have to do it in a business-like way; your house will be mine, of
course, but I will make you very comfortable as my guest!" and she
smiled with suitable playfulness. "Let the lawyers talk over these
things, not you and me--you may be sure mine will look after me!"
John Derringham felt the blood tingling in his ears. There was nothing
to take exception to in what she had said, but it hurt him awfully.
"Very well," he answered wearily, and closed his eyes for a moment. "If
you are satisfied, that is all that need be said. As things go on, and I
reach where I mean to get, I dare say to spend money to do the thing
beautifully will please you as much as it will gratify me. I will give
you what I can of the honors and glories--so shall we consider our
bargain equal?"
This was not lover-like, and Mrs. Cricklander knew it, but it was better
to have got it all over. She was well aware that the "honors and
glories" would compensate her for the outlay of her dollars, but her red
mouth shut with a snap as she registered a thought.
"When I come back it may amuse me to make him really in love with me."
Then, watching carefully, she saw that some cloud of jar and disillusion
had settled upon her _fiancé's_ face. So with her masterly skill she
tried to banish it, talking intelligently upon the political situation
and his prospects. It looked certain that the Government would not last
beyond the session--and then what would happen?
Mr. Hanbury-Green had given her a very clear forecast of what the other
side meant to do, but this she did not impart to John Derringham.
She made one really stupid mistake as she got up to leave the room.
"If you want a few thousands now, John," she said, as she bent to
lightly salute his cheek, "do let me know and I will send them to your
bank. They may be useful for the wedding."
A dull flush mounted to the roots of his hair, and then left him very
pale.
He took her hand and kissed it with icy homage.
"Thank you, no--" he said. "You are far too good. I will not take
anything from you until the bargain is completed."
Then their eyes met and in his there was a flash of steel.
And when she had gone from the room he lay and quivered, a sense of
hideous humiliation flooding his being.
The following day she came in the morning. She looked girlish in her
short tennis frock and was rippling with smiles. She sat on the bed and
kissed him--and then slipped her hand into his.
"John, darling," she said sweetly. "People will begin to talk if I stay
here at Wendover now that you are getting better--and you would hate
that as much as I--so I have settled to go to Carlsbad with Lady
Maulevrier--just for three weeks. By that time my splendid John will be
himself again and we can settle about our wedding--" then she bent and
kissed him once more before he could speak. "Arabella is going to get
her mother to come down," she went on, "and you will be safe here with
these devoted old ladies and your Brome who is plainly in love with you,
poor thing!" and she laughed gayly. "Say you think it is best, too,
John, dearest?"
"Whatever you wish," he answered with some sudden quick sense of relief.
"I know I am an awful bore lying here, and I shall not be able to crawl
to a sofa even for another week, these doctors say."
"You are not a bore--you are a darling," she murmured, patting his hand.
"And if only I were allowed to stay with you--night and day--and nurse
you like Brome, I should be perfectly happy. But these snatched
scraps--John, darling, I can't bear it!"
He wondered if she were lying. He half thought so, but she looked so
beautiful, it enabled him to return her caresses with some tepid warmth.
"It is too sweet of you, Cecilia," he said, as he kissed her. He had not
yet used one word of intimate endearment--she had never been his
darling, his sweet and his own, like Halcyone.
After she had gone again, all details having been settled for her
departure upon the Monday, he almost felt that he hated her. For, when
she was in this apparently loving mood, it seemed as if her bonds
tightened round his throat and strangled him to death. "Octopus arms" he
remembered Cheiron had called them.
When Mrs. Cricklander got back to her own favorite long seat out on the
terrace, she sat down, and settling the pillows under her head, she let
her thoughts ticket her advantages gained, in her usual concrete
fashion.
"He is absolutely mine, body and soul. He does not love me--we shall
have the jolliest time seeing who will win presently--but I have got the
dollars, so there is no doubt of the result--and what fun it will be! It
does not matter what I do now, he cannot break away from me. He has let
me see plainly that my money has influenced him--and, although
Englishmen are fools, in his class they are ridiculously honorable. I've
got him!" and she laughed aloud. "It is all safe, he will not break the
bargain!"
So she wrote an interesting note to Mr. Hanbury-Green with a pencil on
one of the blocks which she kept lying about for any sudden use--and
then strolled into the house for an envelope.
And, as John Derringham lay in the darkened room upstairs, he presently
heard her joyous voice as she played tennis with his secretary, and the
reflection he made was:
"Good Lord, how thankful I should be that at least I do not love her!"
Then he clenched his hands, and his aching thoughts escaped the iron
control under which since his engagement he had tried always to keep
them, and they went back to Halcyone. He saw again with agonizing
clearness her little tender face, when her soft, true eyes had melted
into his as she whispered of love.
"This is what God means in everything." Well, God had very little to do
with himself and Cecilia Cricklander!
And then he suddenly seemed to see the brutishness of men. Here was
he--a refined, honorable gentleman--in a few weeks going to play false
to his every instinct, and take this woman whom he was growing to
despise--and perhaps dislike--into his arms and into his life, in that
most intimate relationship which, he realized now, should only be
undertaken when passionate calls of tenderest love imperatively forced
it. She would have the right to be with him day--and night. She might be
the mother of his children--and he would have to watch her instincts,
which he surely would have daily grown to loathe, coming out in them.
And all because money had failed him in his own resources and was
necessary to his ambitions, and this necessity, working with an appeal
to his senses when fired with wine, had brought about the situation.
God Almighty! How low he felt!
And he groaned aloud.
Then from a small dispatch box, which he had got his servant to put by
his bed, he drew forth a little gold case, in which for all these years
he had kept an oak leaf. He had had it made in the enthusiasm of his
youth when he had returned to London after Halcyone, the wise-eyed
child, had given it to him, and it had gone about everywhere with him
since as a sort of fetish.
It burnt his sight when he looked at it now. For had he been "good and
true"? Alas! No--nothing but a sensual, ambitious weakling.