THE POINT SOLVED--THE MEETING
Dinner was over, and of Lady Oxted's party there only remained by eleven
o'clock but a couple of her guests. There was a ball at one house, an
evening party at another, a concert at a third, and each claimed its
grilling quota, leaving even at this hour only Harry Vail and Geoffrey
Langham. Lord Oxted, as was his wont, had retired to his study, as soon
as his duties as host would permit, without positively violating
decency, but the two young men still lingered, making an intimate party.
During the last few months Harry had continued to so expand that it
would have been difficult to recognise in him the hero of that recluse
coming-of-age party but half a year ago. But this change was the result
of no violent revolution; his nature had in no way been wrested from its
normal development, merely that development had been long retarded, and
was now proportionately rapid. For years his solitary home had ringed
him with frost, the want of kindly fireside interests had led him on the
path that leads to the great, unexplored deserts of the recluse; but the
impulse given, the plunge into the world taken, he had thriven and
grown with marvellous alacrity. Indeed, the stunted habit of his teens
remained in him now only as shown in a certain impression he produced of
holding himself still somewhat in reserve; in a disposition, notable in
an age which loves to expose its internal organism to the gaze of
sympathizing friends, to be his own master; to retain, if he wished, a
privacy of his own, and to guard, as a sacred trust, his right to his
own opinion in matters which concerned himself.
Lady Oxted, however, on this as on many other occasions, felt herself
obliged to find fault with him, and the presence of her niece, it would
appear, did not impose bounds on her candour.
"You are getting lazy and self-contented, Harry," she remarked on this
particular evening. "You are here in London professing to lead the life
of the people with whom you associate, and you are shirking it."
Harry looked up with mild wonder at this assault, and drew his chair a
little closer up to the half circle they made round the open window, for
the night was stifling, and the candles had drooped during fish.
"I never professed anything of the kind," he said; "and I don't yet
understand in the slightest degree what you mean. But, no doubt, I soon
shall."
"I will try to make it plain to you," said Lady Oxted. "You have chosen
to come to London and lead the silly, frivolous life we all lead. That,
to begin with, is ridiculous of you. There is no need for you to be in
London, and why any fairly intelligent young man ever is, unless he has
business which takes him there, passes my understanding. You might be
down at Vail, looking after your property, or you might be travelling."
"I still don't understand about my professing to lead the life of the
people among whom I move," said Harry.
"I am coming to that. You have chosen to spend these three months in
London without any better reason for it than that everybody else does
so. That being so, you ought to behave like everybody else. For
instance, when Mrs. Morris wanted to take you to her sister's dance
to-night, you ought to have gone; also Lady Wraysbury asked you to go to
the concert at the Hamiltons'. Again you refused."
"She wanted you to come too," said Harry, "at least, she asked you," he
added, getting in a back-hander.
"I'm an old woman, and I choose to sit by my own fire."
"Won't you have it lit?" asked Harry. "And I chose to sit there too. But
I will go away, if you like."
"And will you go to the dance?"
"Not in the least; if you send me away, I shall go to bed."
"You speak as if you were all the six great powers, sending an ultimatum
to Heligoland," said Lady Oxted.
"Not in the least; if you send me away, I shall go."
Lady Oxted laughed.
"Heligoland replies that the six great powers may wait ten minutes," she
said.
Harry turned to Evie Aylwin.
"Yes, I feel just as you do," he said eagerly, reverting at once to the
conversation which had been interrupted by Lady Oxted's strictures. "I
love the sense of being in the middle of millions of people, each of
whom, just like you and me, have their own private paradise and joy of
life, which the world probably never guesses."
Evie looked at him quickly.
"Have you a private joy, Lord Vail?" she asked. "Do tell me what it is.
A thing that is private is always interesting."
Harry laughed.
"It is called the Luck," he said; "the Luck of the Vails."
"Are you really beginning to believe in that nonsense, Harry?" asked
Lady Oxted.
"I have begun," said he.
"O Aunt Violet, how horrid you are!" cried Evie. "Do let Lord Vail tell
me about it. It is private: I am dying to know."
"Shall I? I will make it short, then," said Harry, "for Lady Oxted's
sake."
"I would rather that you made it long for mine," said the girl; "but
that is as you please."
Lady Oxted gave a loud and quite voluntary sigh.
"Poor, dear Harry!" she said. "Geoffrey, let us talk about something
extremely tangible the while. You are on the Stock Exchange. Speak to me
of backwardation and contango. That may counteract the weakening effect
of Harry's nonsense. Are you a bear?"
Harry smiled, and drew his chair closer to the girl's. "I will talk
low," he said, "so that we shall not offend Lady Oxted, and you must
promise to stop me if you get bored. Anyhow, you brought it on yourself,
for you asked me about my private joy. This is it."
Blue eyes, deepened by the shaded light to violet, looked into his as he
began his tale; into hers looked brown eyes, which seemed black. He told
her of the ancient history of the cup, and she listened with interest to
a story that might have claimed attention even from a stranger. Then he
came to his own finding of it in an attic upon a winter's day; to the
three accidents to himself, each trivial, which had followed the
finding; and her eyes--which up till now had been at one time on his, at
another had strayed with a certain consciousness and purpose (for he
never looked elsewhere than at hers) now this way, now that, had
superintended the disentangling of a piece of lace which had caught in
her bracelet, or had guided her finger as it traced the intricate ivory
of her fan handle--became absorbed. They saw only Harry's big, dark
eyes, or, at their widest circuit, his parted lips, from which the words
came. Her own mouth, thin, finely lipped, drooped a little at the
centre with interest and expectation, and the even line of teeth showed
in the red a band of ivory set in pomegranate. Once she impatiently
swept back a tress of hair which drooped over her ear, but the playing
of her fingers with her fan had become unconscious, and her eyes no
longer followed them. And it would seem that Harry had forgotten his
promise to make the story short for Lady Oxted's sake, and had rather
acceded silently to the girl's request to make it long for hers, for the
startling revelations about backwardations and bears had long languished
before the tale was done.
At last Harry's voice stopped, and there was silence a moment, though
both still looked at the other. Then Evie gave a little sharp,
involuntary sigh, and her eyebrows met in a frown.
"Throw it away, Lord Vail," she said sharply. "Throw it away at once,
where it will be lost, lost. It is a terrible thing! And yet, and yet,
how can one believe it? The thing is gold and gems, that is all. Ah! how
I should like to see it! It must be magnificent, this Luck of yours. All
the same, it is terrible. How can it be your private joy?"
Harry rose. If he was not in earnest, it was an admirable counterfeit.
"Do you not see?" he said. "'Fear both fire and frost and rain,' runs
the rhyme. But think what the cup is called: it is the Luck of the
Vails, and the Vails are--well, they are I and my uncle at least. Ah! I
forget one more thing. Only two days ago my uncle found the key of its
case. It was locked when I found it; it had to be broken open. Well, I
fell into the fire; I caught a chill in the rain; I sprained my ankle,
owing to the frost. I have paid the penalties of the Luck. Now, don't
you see I am waiting for the Luck itself? Indeed, perhaps it has begun,"
he added.
"How so?" asked the girl with security, for she knew he was not the kind
of man to pay inane compliments.
"Since I found it, I have begun to become human," he said gravely.
"Indeed, six months ago I had no friend in the world except Geoffrey."
"What's that about me?" asked Geoffrey, who was playing piquet with Lady
Oxted.
"I was only saying you weren't such a brute as you appeared," said
Harry, without looking round; "I'm a true friend, Geoff." Then, dropping
his voice again, "Then, on the finding of the Luck, I became--oh, I
don't know what I became--what I am, anyhow!"
He leaned back again in his chair, blushing a little at his own
unpremeditated burst of egotism.
"Of course, soberly, and in the light of 9 A.M., I don't believe in it,"
he continued. "But my having those three little accidents was a very
curious coincidence, following as they did on the heels of my finding
the Luck. Anyhow, it pleases me to think that there may be one
coincidence more--that those three little bits of bad luck will be
followed by a piece of very good luck. That is my private joy--the
thought of some great, good thing happening to me. And then, oh, then,
won't I just take the Luck, and stamp on it, and throw the rent pieces
to the four winds of heaven!"
There was a moment's silence as his voice, slightly raised, gave out the
blindly spoken words, which had yet a certain ring of truth about them.
But as soon as they were spoken Evie's mood changed.
"Oh, you mustn't!" she cried; "you could not bring yourself to destroy
such a lovely thing. Those stars of emeralds, those clear-set diamond
handles, oh! it makes my mouth water to think of them. I love jewels!"
Lady Oxted at this point was deep in the heavily swollen waters of
Rubicon, and her tone was of ill-suppressed acidity.
"Is the nursery rhyme nearly finished?" she asked.
Harry advanced to her and held out his hand.
"Make it up, Lady Oxted," he said. "My fault entirely!"
Evie followed him.
"Dear Aunt Violet," she said, "shake hands with Lord Vail this moment.
He has given me the most exciting half hour; and you may die in the
night, and then you'll be sorry you spoke unkindly to him. And now we'll
talk about liquidation as much as you please. Oh! you are playing
bezique.--Really, Lord Vail, your story was one of the most interesting
I have ever heard; you see it isn't over yet; you still have the Luck.
That makes all the difference; one is never told a ghost story till the
house is pulled down, or all the people who have seen the ghost are in
lunatic asylums. But your story is now only at the beginning. Upon my
word, I can't make up my mind what you ought to do with the Luck. But
I'll tell you some day, when I feel certain. Oh! I shall never feel
certain," she cried. "You must act as you please!"
"I have your leave?" he said, quite gravely and naturally.
"Yes."
At that again their eyes met, but though they had looked at each other
so long and so steadily on this first evening of their acquaintance, on
this occasion neither of them prolonged the glance.
Presently after, the two young men left and strolled back to Geoffrey's
rooms in Orchard Street, on the way to Cavendish Square. Both were of
the leisurely turn of mind that delights in observation and makes no use
whatever of that which it has observed; and scorning the paltry saving
of time and shoe leather to be secured by a cab, they went on foot
through the night bright with lamps of carriages and jingling with bells
of hansoms.
"Well, I've had an awfully nice evening," said Harry. "Extra nice, I
mean, though it is always jolly at the Oxteds."
"I thought you were enjoying yourself," said the other, "when you
refused to go to the concert, for which, as you remember, only this
afternoon you were wishing for an invitation. Afterward, also, I thought
you were enjoying yourself."
"Oh, for God's sake don't try to be sly!" exclaimed Harry. "I wish I was
a better hand at telling a story. But all the same I think it didn't
bore Miss Aylwin. After all, the Luck is a very curious thing," he
added.
"You are going to Oxted for the Sunday, are you not?" asked Geoffrey.
"Yes; the Grimstones have the flue in the house, bless them! And you go
home, don't you? Oh, I never saw such wonderful eyes in my life!" he
cried.
"You are alluding to mine, apparently?" said Geoffrey.
"Yes, of course I am. Deep violet by candlelight, and soft somehow like
velvet."
"Very handsome of you. I'll look to-night when I go to bed. My hair,
too, soft and fluffy, and the colour of the sun shining through a mist."
Harry laughed.
"The habit of being funny is growing on you, Geoff," he said. "Take it
in time, old chap, and see some good man about it. Oh! it's rot going to
bed now; let's come to the club; it's only just down Park Lane. I'm not
feeling like bed just yet."
Meantime, at the house they had just left, Evie had gone up to bed,
leaving Lady Oxted to do what she called "write two notes," a simple
diplomatic method of stating that she did not herself mean to come
upstairs immediately. These written, she announced, she would come to
talk for five minutes, and they would take, perhaps, a quarter of an
hour to write. In other words, as soon as Evie had gone, she went
downstairs to seek her husband in his room, where she would be sure to
find him sitting by a green reading lamp in mild exasperation at
anything which the Government might happen to have done with regard
either to a kindly old President of a South African republic or the
second standard for board schools.
"Violet, it is really too bad," said he, as she entered. "Have you read
the Home Secretary's speech at Manchester? He says--let me see, where is
it?"
"Dear Bob," said his wife, "whatever he said, you would quite certainly
disagree with it. But never mind showing it me this minute. I want your
advice about another matter."
A faint smile came over Lord Oxted's thin, sharp face; he usually smiled
when his wife came to him for advice. He put down his paper and crossed
one leg over the other.
"What sort of advice?" he asked. "Be far more explicit before you
consult me. Do you want to tell me of some decision you have made, and
wish me to agree with you, or is it possible that you have not yet made
your decision? It is as well to know, Violet, and it may save me from
misunderstanding you."
Lady Oxted laughed.
"I am not yet sure which it is," she said. "Let me tell you my story,
and by that time, you see, I may have made up my mind, in which case I
shall want the first sort of advice; but if I have not, the second."
"That sounds fair," he assented.
In a few words she told him all that had passed between her and Evie.
"And now," she concluded, "am I to promise or not?"
Lord Oxted was a cynic in a certain mild and kindly fashion.
"Certainly promise," he said. "And, being a woman, you will probably at
the very back of your mind--the very back, I say--reserve to yourself
the right to break it if it becomes inconvenient to keep it."
"Don't be rude, Bob. I think I shall promise, but at the same time write
to Mrs. Aylwin."
Her husband chuckled quietly.
"That is precisely what I meant," he said, "only I did not put the
reservation quite so far forward in your mind. Did the two young people
get on well together?"
"Too well. Harry has developed an amazing knack of getting on well with
people. And he is coming to us for the Sunday."
"Then most likely you are already too late. You should have thought of
these things before, Violet. Your after-thoughts, it is true, are often
admirable, but, so to speak, they never catch the train. Bear this also
in mind: if anything happens, if the two get engaged, we shall be liable
at any moment to a crushing descent from Mrs. Aylwin. If she comes, I
go. That is all."
"But she is charming."
"And completely overpowering. I will not be made to feel like a child in
my own house. Dear me, you have probably got into a mess, Violet.
Good-night, dear."
"You agree with me, then?" she asked.
"Completely, entirely, fervently, for it is clear to me that you want
the first sort of advice."
Lady Oxted went slowly upstairs and to Evie's room. Her maid had already
left her, and the two settled themselves down for a talk. The night was
hot, and Evie, in a white dressing gown with a touch of blue ribbon,
lounged coolly by the open window. The hum of ambient London came up to
them like the sound of drowsy, innumerable bees, and the girl listened
in a sort of ecstasy.
"Hark! hark!" she cried; "hundreds and thousands and millions of people
are there! Lord Vail felt just as I do about it. Oh, what a host of
pleasant things there are in the world!" she cried, stretching out her
arms as if to take the whole swarming town to her breast. Then she
turned quickly away into the room again.
"Now, dear aunt," she said, "before we settle down to talk, and I have
lots to say, let me know that one thing. Do you promise never to tell me
the name of that man?"
Lady Oxted did not pause.
"Yes, I promise," she said.
"Thank you. So that is all right. It would be dreadful, would it not, if
I had been obliged to be afraid that every particularly delightful
person that I met was the son, or the nephew, or the cousin of that man,
or even the man himself? But now that is all right; mother would not
tell me, and you (knowing her wish, is it not so?) also will not. O Aunt
Violet, I intend to enjoy myself so! What a jolly world it is, to be
sure! I am so glad God thought of it! Is that profane? No, I think not."
Lady Oxted, it has been said, had anticipated one unpleasant moment.
This, she considered, made two. And though it was not her habit to
question the decrees of Providence, she wondered what she had done to
deserve a position where the converse of candour was so sorely in
demand. But she had not much time for thought, for Evie continued:
"Only one evening gone," she said, "and that not yet gone, and what
pleasure I have already had! Aunt Violet, how could you want Lord Vail
not to tell me the story of the Luck? It was the most exciting thing I
have ever heard, and, as I told him, he is only at the beginning of it.
Italy, the South, is supposed to be the home of romance, but I do not
find it there. Then I come to England, and in London, in Grosvenor
Square, I hear within an hour or two of my arrival that story. I
think----" She stopped suddenly, got up, and sat down on the sofa by
Lady Oxted.
"Lord Vail--who is he?" she asked. "What pleasant people you have at
your house, Aunt Violet! He is so nice. So is his friend--Mr. Langton,
is it not? So was the man who took me in to dinner. What was his name? I
did not catch it."
There was not much comfort here. The girl had forgotten, or not heard,
the name of the man who took her in to dinner; she had got Geoffrey
Langham's name wrong, and out of all these "nice people" there was only
one name right.
"Langham, dear--not Langton," said Lady Oxted, "and the man who took you
in to dinner was Mr. Tresham. Surely you must have heard his name. He is
in the Cabinet. Really, Evie, you do not appreciate the fine people I
provide for your entertainment."
The girl laughed lazily, but with intense enjoyment.
"Not appreciate?" she said. "Words fail me to tell you how I appreciate
them all. Mr. Tresham was simply delightful. We talked about dachshunds,
which I love, and what else--oh! diamonds. I love them also. Aunt
Violet, I should like to see the Luck: it must be a wonderful thing. So
Mr. Tresham is a Conservative?"
"It is supposed so," said Lady Oxted, with slight asperity. "When the
Conservatives are in power, dear, the Cabinet is rarely composed of
Liberals."
The girl laughed again.
"Dear Aunt Violet, you are a little hard on us poor innocents this
evening. You blew up Lord Vail in the most savage manner, and now you
are blowing me up. What have we done? Well, now, tell me about Mr.
Langham."
"Geoffrey is a younger son of Lord Langham," said the other. "He is on
the stock exchange, and is supposed to know nothing whatever about
stock-broking."
"How very good-looking he is!" said Evie. "If I wanted to exchange
stock, I should certainly ask him to do it for me. Somehow, people with
nice faces inspire me with much more confidence than those whom I am
assured have beautiful minds. One can see their faces: that makes so
much difference!"
Lady Oxted assented, and waited with absolute certainty for the next
question. This tribute to Geoffrey's good looks did not deceive her for
a moment: it was a typical transparency. And when the next question
came, she only just checked herself from saying, "I thought so."
"And now tell me about Lord Vail," said Evie, after a pause.
"Well, he seemed to be telling you a good deal himself," said Lady
Oxted. "What can I add? He is not yet twenty-two; he is considered
pleasant; he is poor; he is the head of what was once a great family."
"But his people?" asked Evie.
"He has no father, no mother, no brothers or sisters."
"Poor fellow!" said Evie, thoughtfully. "But he doesn't look like a
person who need be lonely, or who was lonely, for that matter. Has he no
relations?"
"Of his name only one," said Lady Oxted, feeling that Providence was
really treating her with coarse brutality; "that is his uncle, his
great-uncle, rather, Francis Vail," and, as she spoke, she thought to
herself in how widely different a connection she might have had to use
those two words.
"Do you know him?"
"I used to, but never intimately. He has not lived in the world lately.
For the last six months he has been down at Harry's place in Wiltshire.
The boy has been exceedingly good to him."
"Is he fond of him?"
"Very, I believe," said Lady Oxted. "He often speaks of him, and always
with affection and a tenderness that is rather touching."
"That is nice of him," said the girl with decision, "for I suppose he
can not be expected to have much in common with him. And so the old man
lives with him. He is old, I suppose, as he is Lord Vail's great-uncle."
"He is over seventy," said Lady Oxted, turning her back to the storm.
"And Harry Vail is poor, you say?"
"Considering what the Vails have been, very poor," said Lady Oxted. "But
you probably know as much about that as I, since Harry took so very long
telling you the story of the Luck. It was lost once in the reign of
Queen Anne, and during the South-Sea Bubble----"
"Yes, he told me about that," said Evie. "It is strange, is it not?"
Suddenly she sat up as if with an effort.
"Oh! to-morrow, and to-morrow, and lots more of them!" she cried. "Tell
me what we shall do to-morrow, Aunt Violet. I am sure it will all be
delightful, and for that very reason I want to think about it
beforehand. I am a glutton about pleasure. Will you take me somewhere in
the morning, and will delightful people come to lunch? Then in the
afternoon we go to Oxted, do we not? I love the English country. Who
will be coming? Is it a beautiful place? What is the house like? Tell me
all about everything."
"Including about going to bed and going to sleep, Evie?" asked the
other. "It is long after twelve, do you know?"
The girl got up.
"And you want to go to bed," she said. "I am so sorry, Aunt Violet! I
ought to have seen you were tired. You look tired."
"And you--don't you want to go to sleep? You were travelling all last
night."
The girl looked at the smooth pillow and sheet folded back. "Ah! it does
look nice," she said. "But, indeed, I don't feel either sleepy or tired.
Anyhow, Aunt Violet, I am not going to keep you up. Oh, I am so glad you
got mother to let me come and stay with you! I shall have a good time.
Good-night."
"Good-night, dear. You have everything?"
"Everything--more than everything."