LOVERS' PARTING
It might have been better for Nelly if her father had told her of those
tentative advances to Captain Langrishe, for then her pride might have
come to her aid. As it was, she had nothing to go upon but those looks
of his, and his manner to her when they had met at the houses of
friends. For they had met, and that was something the General did not
know. More, Nelly had engineered, with the cleverness of a girl in love,
an acquaintance with Captain Langrishe's sister, a Mrs. Rooke, who lived
in one of the Bayswater squares. Mrs. Rooke was a vivacious little dark
woman, with a cheek like a peach's rosy side. She was perfectly happy in
her own married life, and she had the happily-married woman's desire to
bring lovers together. She had taken a prodigious fancy to Nelly. While
Captain Langrishe yet remained in England that house in the Bayswater
square had an overwhelming attraction for Nelly.
She had gone there first under the Dowager's wing. Cyprian Rooke, K.C.,
belonged to an unexceptionable family, and even the proud Dowager could
find no fault with Nelly's friendship for his wife.
In those days poor Nelly used to feel a perfect monster of deceit. For,
first of all, she was deceiving her dear old father. The name of Rooke
signified nothing one way or the other to him. Then there was the
Dowager, who had proved the most patient and considerate of chaperons,
sitting wide-eyed and cheerful till her charge had danced through the
programme if it so pleased her; going hither and thither to crowded At
Homes, attending first nights at the play--doing, in fact, everything to
give Nelly a good time. To be sure, the Dowager attached no importance
to the name of Langrishe any more than the General did to that of Rooke.
Mrs. Rooke gave a good many dances after Christmas, and Nelly was at
them all. Sometimes Robin was there, sometimes that was not possible.
And Robin was out of his element at such gatherings, since he did not
dance and could find no conversation to his mind while he leant against
the wall of the ball-room or hung about the doors. Life was so full of
work for him that it seemed unreasonable to keep him where there was
nothing he could do.
Captain Langrishe turned up at the dances as unfailingly as Nelly
herself. He came in spite of many resolutions to the contrary, as the
moth comes to singe its wings in the flame of the candle. He did not
make Nelly conspicuous for the Dowager or anyone else to see. Sometimes
he asked her for several dances. Again, he would be merely polite in
asking her for one; and would yield her up coldly to her next partner
and never come to her side again for the rest of the evening. Unlike Sir
Robin, he danced conspicuously well. Nelly had thrilled to a speech of
Robin's: "One cannot despise the art of dancing for a man when a fellow
like that thinks it worth his while to excel in it."
One night, when the guests had departed, Mrs. Rooke had something to
tell her husband.
"That little wretch, Nelly Drummond!" she said. "I thought she was as
innocent and candid as a child. Would you believe it that all the time
she has been engaged to that gawky cousin of hers?"
"My dear Belinda, all what time?"
"Well, for a lawyer, Cyprian----"
"I know I'm obtuse, but the law doesn't favour deductions. All what
time?"
"Why, all the time poor Godfrey's been falling head over ears in love
with her."
Mr. Rooke whistled. He was fond of his wife's brother.
"Are you sure, Bel? I noticed particularly that he was dancing with the
wallflowers to-night. He's a good fellow, so that didn't surprise me.
Now you mention it, I caught sight of the little girl dancing with Jack
Menzies. She didn't look particularly happy."
"She hasn't been looking particularly happy. I have been imagining that
Godfrey's poverty stood between them. He is so impracticable. And I have
been making opportunities for them to meet. After all, she is Sir Denis
Drummond's only child, and is sure to be sufficiently well off. And
here, after all my trouble, I find she is engaged to her cousin. I
wonder what she can see in that ugly stick to prefer him to Godfrey!"
"She may not prefer him, my dear. It may be a marriage of convenience.
And Drummond is not a stick. That is your feminine prejudice. He is a
very clever fellow, although he has got the Socialistic bee in his
bonnet. However, he's young, and has time to mend his ways."
"I don't want to discuss him. How coldblooded you are, Cyprian! I can
only think of my poor Godfrey going off to the ends of the earth, and
his being deceived and hurt by that heartless girl."
"You will let him know?"
"I certainly shall. He ought to know. It may be the quickest way to make
him forget her."
"Since he seems to have made up his mind to go away without speaking to
her, I can't see that any great harm has been done," Mr. Rooke said,
with his masculine common-sense.
"I shall never forgive her," Mrs. Rooke retorted, with true feminine
inconsequence.
She took an early opportunity of telling her brother what the Dowager
had told her. The occasion was in her own drawing-room at the
afternoon-tea hour, and, since the room was only lit by firelight and a
tall standard lamp, his face, where he stood by the mantel-shelf, was in
shadow. There had been something portentous in the manner of the
telling.
For a few seconds he kept silence. Then he spoke very quietly.
"I hope Miss Drummond may be happy," he said. He did not trouble to put
on a pretence of indifference with Bel, just as he did not wish to talk
about it. He went on to speak of ordinary topics. That evening he stayed
to dinner. He had only a week more in England. Under the electric light
at the dinner-table his haggardness was revealed.
"For once," said Cyprian Rooke afterwards, "your discovery wasn't a
mare's nest, my dear Bel. Godfrey looks hard hit."
The week turned round quietly. Nelly had not heard definitely the date
of Captain Langrishe's departure. For six days she kept away from the
Rookes' house. On that last evening he had been icily cold. The poor
girl was in torture. All the week she was calling pride to her aid. The
sixth day it refused to bolster her up any longer. The sixth day she met
at lunch a friend of hers and Belinda Rooke's. She asked a question
about the Rookes with averted eyes.
"Poor girl," said the friend; "she is in grief over Godfrey Langrishe.
He sails to-morrow."
The rest of that luncheon-party was a phantasmagoria of faces and voices
to poor Nelly. He was going, and she would never see him again, although
he had shown her by a thousand infallible signs that he loved her.
Despite his occasional coldness, she was sure he loved her. Her pride
was down with a vengeance. She felt nothing at the moment but a desire
to see him before he should go--just to see him, to see the lighting up
of his gloomy eyes, as they had lit up on seeing her suddenly before he
could get his face under control. After that one meeting, the deluge!
But she must see him--she must see him for the last time.
The kindly hostess insisted on her going home in a cab. When she had
been driven some distance, Nelly pushed up the little trapdoor of the
hansom and gave another address than Sherwood Square.
Having done it, she felt happier. However it ended, she was making a
last attempt to see him. She could not have endured a passive
acquiescence in her destiny, whatever was to be the end of it.
The luncheon-party had been prolonged, and the gas-lamps in the streets
were lit. It was the close of the short winter's day. Night came
prematurely between the high Bayswater houses. It was almost dark when
she stood at last on Mrs. Rooke's doorstep, asking herself what she
should do if Mrs. Rooke was away from home.
Mrs. Rooke was out, as it happened, but the maid-servant, who knew
Nelly, and, like all servants, had been captivated by her pleasant,
friendly ways, invited her in to await the lady's return. Mrs. Rooke was
expected back to tea. With a smile on her lips she held the drawing-room
door open for Nelly to enter.
Nelly passed through. There was a big French screen by the door. She had
passed beyond it and out into the warm firelit room before she realised
that there was another occupant. Someone stood up from the couch by the
fireplace as she came towards it. Fate had been on her side for once.
The person was Captain Langrishe.
"My sister will not be very long, Miss Drummond," he began, in a tone he
tried in vain to make indifferent. "I hope you won't mind waiting in my
company."
Mind waiting, indeed! To Nelly, as to himself, the seconds were precious
ones. Mrs. Rooke was shopping on that particular afternoon. It was a
kind fate that made it so difficult for her to find just the things she
wanted, that sent half-a-dozen acquaintances and friends in her way.
He took Nelly's hand in his. It was quite cold and clammy, although it
had come out of a satin-lined muff. The hand trembled.
"I heard you were going to-morrow," she said. "I'm so glad I am in time
to wish you _bon voyage_."
"Won't you sit down?"
He set a chair for her in front of the fire. The flames lit up her
golden hair, and revealed her charming face in its becoming setting of
the sables she wore. He sat in his obscure corner, watching her with
moody eyes. He said to himself that he would never see her again, yet he
laboured to make ordinary everyday talk. He asked after the General, and
regretted that the hurry of these latter days had prevented his calling
at Sherwood Square.
"We miss you at the head of the squadron," said Nelly, innocently. "It
isn't the same thing now that there is a stranger."
"Ah!" A flame leaped into his eyes. He leant forward a little. "That
reminds me I ought not to go without making a confession." He was taking
a pocket-book from his breastpocket. He opened it, and held it under
Nelly's eyes. There was a piece of blue ribbon there. She recognised it
with a great leap of her heart. It was her own ribbon which she had lost
that spring day as she stood on the balcony looking down at the
soldiers.
"You recognise it? It was yours. The wind blew it down close to my hand.
I caught it. I have kept it ever since. May I keep it still? It can do
no harm to anybody, my having it--may I keep it?"
She answered something under her breath, which he construed to be "Yes."
She had been feeling the cruelty of it all, that their last hour
together should be taken up by talking of commonplaces. At the sudden
change in his tone--although it was unhappy, there was passion in it,
and the chill seemed to pass away from her heart--the tears filled her
eyes, overflowed them, ran warmly down her cheeks.
At the sight of those tears the young man forgot everything, except that
she was lovely and he loved her and she was crying for him. He leaped to
her side and dropped on his knees. He put both his arms about her and
pressed her closely to him.
"Are you crying because I am going, my darling?" he said. "Good heavens!
don't cry--I'm not worth it. And yet I shall remember, when the world is
between us, that you cried because I was going, you angel of mercy."
An older woman than Nelly might have had the presence of mind to ask him
why he was going. But she was silent. She felt it over-whelmingly sweet
to be held so, to feel his hand smoothing her hair. The bunch of lilies
of the valley she had been wearing was crushed between his breast and
her breast. The sweetness of them rose up as something exquisite and
forlorn. His hand moved tremblingly over her hair to her cheek.
"Give me a kiss, Nelly," he said, "and I will go. Just one kiss. I shall
never have another in all my days. Good-bye, my heart's delight."
For a second their lips clung together. Then his arms relaxed. He put
her down gently into a chair. She lay back with closed eyes. She heard
the door shut behind her. Then she sprang to her feet, realising that he
was gone and it was too late to recall him.
Why should he go? she asked herself, as, with trembling hands, she
arranged the disorder of her hair. Then the merely conventional came in,
as it will even at such tense moments. She asked herself how she would
look to his sister, if she appeared at this moment; to the maid, who
might be expected at any moment bringing in the lamp. The room was dark
but for the firelight. How would she look, with her tear-stained visage
and the disorder of her appearance? She could not sit and make small
talk. That was a heroism beyond her. And she was afraid to speak to
anyone lest she should break down. She adopted a cowardly course.
Afterwards she must explain it to Mrs. Rooke somehow. She put the
consideration of how out of sight: it could wait till the turmoil of her
thoughts was over.
She stole from the room, let herself out quietly, and was grateful for
the dark and the cool, frosty air. About five minutes after she had gone
Mrs. Rooke came in laden with small parcels.
"The Captain and Miss Drummond are in the drawing-room, ma'am," said the
maid.
"Then you can bring tea."
Mrs. Rooke opened the drawing-room door leisurely, turning the handle
once or twice before she did so. She was excited at the thought of the
things that might be happening the other side of the door. Supposing
that Nelly had discovered that life with a poor foot-captain was a more
desirable thing than life with a well-endowed baronet, a coming man in
the political world to boot! Supposing--there was no end to the
suppositions that passed through Mrs. Rooke's busy brain in a few
seconds of time. Then--she entered the room and found emptiness.
"You are sure that neither the Captain nor Miss Drummond left a
message?" she said to the maid who brought the tea.
"Quite sure, ma'am. I had no idea they were gone."
"Do you suppose they went away together, Jane?"
Mrs. Rooke was ready to accept a crumb of possible comfort from her
handmaid.
"I do remember now, ma'am, that when I was pulling down the blind
upstairs I heard the hall-door shut twice. I never thought of looking in
the drawing-room, ma'am. I made sure that the noise of the blinds had
deceived me into taking next-door for ours."
"Ah, thank you, Jane, that will do."
The omens were not at all propitious. Mrs. Rooke was fain to acknowledge
as much to herself dejectedly. Nor did Cyprian think them propitious
when taken into counsel. When she went downstairs, she found that her
brother had come in. He was to spend the last evening at his sister's
house.
Captain Langrishe's face, however, did not invite questions. He made no
allusion at all to the happenings of the afternoon, and his sister felt
that she could not ask him. She had a heavy heart for him as she bade
him good-night, although she called something after him with a cheerful
pretence about their rendezvous next morning.
"It _is_ nine-thirty at Fenchurch Street, isn't it?" she asked.
"Do you think you will ever manage it, Bel?" Captain Langrishe smiled at
her haggardly.
"Oh, yes, easily--by staying up all night," she answered.
But her heart was as heavy as lead for him.