“THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS”
“Nancy! I say, Nancy! Here’s Billy and this new man of his turned up
_hours_ before we expected them, and mother’s out calling somewhere,
and Blanche is in the middle of washing her hair, and just look at the
awful rip I’ve made in my frock; _I_ can’t come!” announced Theo in a
voice subdued almost to a stage whisper when I met her on the stairs this
afternoon. “So _you_ be a saint and go in and talk pretty to the visitor
till tea, will you?”
“All right,” I laughed; and passed on to the drawing-room.
It was cool and dim in there after the sunshine of the garden, where I
had been lazing over a book and forgetting this morning’s stress, and for
a moment my eyes could scarcely make out the two figures that stood with
their backs to the white-curtained French windows.
Then, beside the Governor’s tall bulk, I saw a small, dapper, masculine
silhouette with a rather too abrupt “pinch-in” at the waist of its coat,
and a perky, quick turn of the head; the general effect of Mr. Cyril
Maude in some military part that I had once seen. Was it this that seemed
so familiar, I wondered?
A monocle fell with a click against a waistcoat-button; then, as I came
forward, a voice, also vaguely familiar, cried in amazement:
“Monica Trant! Little Monica! Well, _I_ am blessed!”
Who in the world was this that knew my name? I looked harder at him.
Surely it—Was it?—yes! it _was_ one of father’s old friends, Major
Montresor. So _this_ was my employer’s “business acquaintance.” I
felt myself trying not to stare. The Governor, I know, was staring
undisguisedly at the pair of us.
“Why, bless my soul, Monica! Who’d have expected to see _you_ coming in
like this?”
“Or you, Major Montresor?” I retorted, obliged to smile at him as I held
out my hand to his always tenacious clasp.
To be frank, I can’t say I was at all pleased that the Governor’s visitor
had turned out to be someone who’d seen me so often in the old days.
I don’t want those days to be mixed up with these. Already a ghost or
so out of those days had seemed inclined to come and haunt the lovely
garden and the big, comfortable rooms at The Lawn! And now I seemed to
see a regular Richard-the-Third-like procession of those ghosts rising
up behind the little Major’s trimly-waisted figure—people with whom
I’d associated last time he’d seen me—standing in judgment, echoing
his “Who’d have expected to see _you_?”—adding their phantom stares to
those of the two men whose eyes were actually upon me. It was tiresome;
might mean all sorts of adaptations; even the assumption of a “Manner C”
for the benefit of Major Montresor! As for him, he’s a rather amusing,
tactless, talkative, would-be-man-of-the-world sort of person, who’d been
quite ready to get up what Kipling calls the “You’re-only-a-little-girl
type of flirtation” with me when I was seventeen or so. I hadn’t met him
since, nor had I wanted to; though I had been distinctly interested, five
years ago, to find that someone who possessed medals and a moustache
cared to talk to me while I was still in the school-room. He’d got to
look ever so much older since then, balder, stiffer of movement in his
slim boots and his stays—I beg his pardon, I expect he called it his
belt—and, apparently, more flirtatious than ever!
Now, any _woman_ over thirty-five has to be fairly attractive before
she’s allowed to flirt on without fear of ridicule. But a _man_ at fifty,
or fifty-five, seems to claim the right to monopolize the prettiest and
youngest girl he meets. It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t a hair on his
head or a tooth of his own in it. As long as he’s single and wears
trousers, he’s an eligible bachelor—or so he thinks. A mercy he doesn’t
hear the ideas of the favoured girl on this subject!
So, quite unsuspectingly, Major Montresor beamed upon me, and declared
at least three times that this was a most _delightful_ surprise, upon
his word!—seeming almost to forget his host, who stood a little aside,
looking utterly disconcerted, as far as I could see without turning my
eyes, to discover that this “business acquaintance” knew his official
_fiancée_ better than her employer ever could!
Christian names, too!
“Monica—Bless my soul, what’s this?”
“This” was an interruption that precipitated itself through the unlatched
French window; a small white dog that bore in his mouth a large bone,
noisome-smelling and of the earth, earthy, which he dumped upon the
Major’s japanned boot.
“_Cariad!_” growled the Governor, more angrily than I’d ever heard him
speak except to me, “what do you _mean_? Here, sir.” He grabbed him by
the collar, kicking the bone violently over the shallow sill in front
of him. “Sorry, I shall have to get the little brute locked up.” And he
dragged the cheerfully resigned Cariad out and along the gravel to the
back of the house.
“Decent sort of young fellow, Waters; very clever business-man; useful to
know; quite a nice chap, too,” commented the little Major, lowering his
voice as he turned to me. “But, my dear child”—he always used the word
“child” to excuse his gesture while he patted my shoulder, or smoothed my
lace collar, or played with my silver chain—“my child, how _did_ you come
to be here?”
“I am staying with Mrs. Waters”—demurely.
“Well, well! So you knew them! Your poor father didn’t, did he? You were
at school with the girls of the house, perhaps?”
“No. I met Mr. Waters”—still more demurely—“in business.”
“Business? Upon my word! Glad you’ve got such a business-adviser. Glad
you’re in the position to need one, Monica. I heard rumours of your
poor father having left you not very well off. Odd how these untrue
bits of gossip get about!”—with an experienced eye upon the expensive
new afternoon frock of my preferred pink, with its creamy ruffle, black
velvet bow, and small paste buckle. “You look the picture of prosperity
and health and good looks, if you’ll allow an old friend to say so?”
Well, one simply _has_ to “allow” things to people who call themselves
“old.” But for that, how many “old friends” would have received the
order of “Paws off!” or “No patting, please,” or a more politely
expressed equivalent from the girls who can’t be rude to their father’s
contemporaries?
I was only just about to draw my hand away from another long and tender
squeeze of Major Montresor’s, when his host came back to us. Through the
French window, as the Governor pushed it open, a ray of sunlight caught
and blazed on the magnificent diamonds of the ring which had been bought
at Gemmer’s for me to wear.
Instantly Major Montresor pounced on that other hand.
“Hal-lo! What’s this? It isn’t——?”
“Yes,” said I, sedately.
“Little Monica engaged?”
“Yes.”
“Come, not really, what? No! You don’t say so, really?”
“I am afraid I must, Major Montresor.”
“By—Jove! And I never heard! Here’s a blow!” He sighed tempestuously.
“Well! Youth will be served! Fortunate youth!” he prattled on without a
break. “I’m sure he’s to be congratulated, the dog. Always hanging round
you in the old days, I remember. Yes! Cultured sort of young Johnny with
a beard—what was his name, now? Ah, I have it—Vandeleur, of course, young
Sydney Vandeleur!”
Pleasant for me, wasn’t it? To have this voice from the Past blurting
out—less tactful even than Cicely!—the name of the lover I had lost. In
a flash I saw my employer’s slight movement—saw by the passing look on
his face that his “business-man’s memory,” which never forgets a name,
had instantly associated that of “Vandeleur” with those people at the
Carlton to whom I’d first introduced my “_fiancé_.” What must he imagine?
Still, that wasn’t the point. The point was that he should explain to
this gossiping little Major, as quickly as possible, how things really—I
mean officially, stood! To my horror he didn’t speak. There was an
agonizing pause. I shot a glance at the Governor.... Heavens! He, of all
people, seemed utterly at a loss—fidgeting like a schoolboy; he who could
“break the news” to his staff at the office without turning a hair, was
leaving it all, here, apparently to _me_!
Well!
Hurriedly I was beginning:
“But, Major Montresor——” when the drawing-room door opened to the
entrance of Mrs. Waters, in her soft grey satin wrap and black picture
hat; Cariad, liberated and tail-wagging, in her wake.
Greetings were exchanged—what talk followed I scarcely heard, until the
gentle voice of the Governor’s mother exclaimed:
“Oh! Then you had met my son’s _fiancée_?”
“_Fiancée?_” echoed Major Montresor. His monocle dropped again, so did
his jaw. I never saw a man so utterly, so comically taken aback. He
wheeled abruptly, to stare from me to the Governor, then back to his
hostess again. “Your son’s? Am I to understand that it is _he_ who is
engaged to Miss Trant?”
Here at last the Governor did find his tongue.
“I have that honour,” he said, clearing his throat, taking a step
forward, and looking down at the little Major just as some tawny Great
Dane might have looked at Cariad—but no! No big dog can ever look as
utterly silly—there’s no other word for it—as a man who doesn’t know what
to say next. And he who had, it appeared, particularly wished to avoid
being made to look a fool on this occasion—Well! He must admit that it
was none of _my_ doing that he stood there looking like that!
“Well, well, well! I suppose I shall have to grin and bear it and
congratulate you, Waters,” rattled off Major Montresor. “I certainly _do_
congratulate you!”
“Doesn’t feel _sorry_ for you,” I added mentally, hoping the unspoken
comment showed in the one glance I allowed myself to steal at my employer
as I crossed over to sit on the low chintz couch beside his mother, while
the visitor talked on.
“Still, you might have prepared me for this, my dear fellow. You might
have given your heart-broken rival some warning. Let me down a bit
gently, eh? about how you were robbing me of the one girl I’d hoped might
solace my declining years. Met Miss Trant, Mrs. Waters? Bless my life,
rather! Used to billet myself for months at Colonel Trant’s house in
the old days—ripping old place it was, too; gorgeous beech avenue; lawn
something like your own here, but sweeping away down to the river—oh,
ripping! What’s become of the place now, Miss Monica; let, I suppose?”
“Sold,” I said, shortly.
Without looking up from the patch of carpet on which Missis’s little
dog slumbered with his muzzle resting against my shoe, I could feel the
change that came into my employer’s grey glance—the half-disconcerted
“M’m. News to _me_, all this!” expression that just flicked across his
face. His mother’s hand made a little movement towards mine—and for some
reason I felt that she was a little sorry.... I was furious! Why on earth
couldn’t this little he-gossip—though why they should understand by the
word “gossip” an old woman, I never _shall_ know—why couldn’t he allow
these people to go on thinking that the typist her employer had chosen
to honour had never been before inside any sort of house but one of a
row of seventy or eighty, all with the same sort of pot-plants hiding
what lay beyond the Nottingham lace curtained windows, with the same
neat front door, and the same metaphorical wolf crouched grimly in front
of it! Desperately I wished that something might suddenly deprive Major
Montresor of the power of speech, only I suppose nothing ever could do
_that_!
Evidently he wasn’t going to spare me anything. I was to stand full in
the limelight of other days.
“Hope the new tenants will keep it up as they should, then, that’s
all”—genially. “They took on the fishing with it, I suppose? ‘Everything
went together.’ What? I see. Hope they’ll take as much pride as your poor
father did in those magnificent hot-houses of his. Ah, I’ve never tasted
peaches like those, anywhere else! Remember how you used to race me down
to get the finest peach before breakfast, Monica? Yes, hang it all, I
think I shall have to ask your leave to go on calling her that, Waters.
Loved her from childhood’s hour, y’see. Her childhood’s, not mine, of
course!”
“Oh,” murmured the Governor.
Miss Robinson would have been kept in high spirits for the next week by
that “Oh.”
It didn’t amuse _me_ much as I sat there, carrying out to the letter
my promise to say nothing and look shy. I was feeling at least as
embarrassed as I looked by the time tea was brought in and the girls made
their appearance; Blanche with her fair hair unmanageably soft from its
washing; Theo, as usual, all eyes for the visitor. I hoped they might
distract his attention from me—they’re quite young enough!—but no! All
the time he was sipping his tea and munching slice after slice of cake,
the little Major continued to pour out comment after embarrassing comment
upon my affairs, addressing himself chiefly now to the Governor.
_He_ sat looking still more hopelessly uncomfortable and bigger
than ever in contrast to the frail china tea-cup and the slice of
wafer-like bread-and-butter in his clutch. Why do people allow men in at
drawing-room teas? Why couldn’t those two have been having theirs in the
billiard-room—the garage—_anywhere_—where I could have been saved from
Major Montresor’s relentless flow of conversation?
“And to think I should have known you all these months without suspecting
that your gain was to be my loss—no, no, I don’t mean the business part
of it, my boy. I mean this engagement of yours, ha, ha! And then—funny
thing! to be congratulating the wrong man.”
“Oh, _were_ you?” burst suddenly, irrepressibly, from Theo, unable to
check the following “Who?”
“Theo-_dora_, dear!”
“Ah, never mind, never mind!” took up the little Major, turning quickly
to the child and smiling from her to me. “I don’t tell tales out of
school, young lady. But brown eyes”—with another monocled glance at those
wide search-lights under the yellow curls—“brown eyes always stand for
fickleness! There must have been a dozen at least of us that you treated
disgracefully, Monica, eh? One comfort is I’m not the _only_ sufferer!”
He was not!
My heart sank lower and lower at the thought that this garrulous little
blunderer was to stay for dinner. And the other expected guest, the
outspoken uncle, was to be here for the whole week-end! What would
_he_ be like? Not worse than Major Montresor—that was the single ray
of comfort. Nothing _could_ be worse! Still, the two together—what a
prospect!
Even as I was shuddering over it, the sound of some confused commotion
was borne in to us from the hall; and then a loud, bluff, breezy voice
positively shouted:
“Name? My good woman, you’re pretty new to this house, or you’d know
my name. Same as your master’s. No! Don’t announce me. I’ll announce
myself.” (As if this were necessary!) “Where are they all? Tea? Good!
Young lady there too? Excellent!”
The door, this time, burst open, and in _avalanched_ (it’s the only word)
Uncle Albert Waters.