Barry Raymond drew the latchkey out of the door and entered his small
flat in Kensington just as the clock in the tiny hall chimed the hour of
ten.
It was a wet night; and he drew off his Burberry and hung it up with a
sense of pleasure in being again in his cosy little eyrie at the top of
the chilly stone steps.
Humming a tune, he crossed the diminutive hall and went into the
sitting-room, where the cheerful crackle of a small wood fire gave an
air of comfort to the hearth.
On the table, where his admirable man-servant had placed it, was a tray
bearing glasses, a siphon and a bottle of whisky; and beside the tray
were the few letters which had come by the last post; while in a
conspicuous place lay a telegram in its tawny envelope; and this,
naturally enough, was the first thing Barry touched.
Taking it up, he tore it open decisively; and as the envelope fell to
the ground he unfolded the pink paper and read the message scrawled
thereon.
"Just arrived Southampton will be with you about ten o'clock.
OWEN."
The paper fluttered to the floor and Barry consulted his watch hastily.
"Ten o'clock! Why, it's that now. So Owen's home. By Jove, what an
unlucky day he's chosen!"
He stood still for a moment, rapt, it would seem, in contemplation of an
unpleasant vision. Then with a shrug of his shoulders he moved to the
fireplace and turned on more light.
"Well, it'll have to be done sooner or later; but"--for a second a
rueful smile lit up his despondent young face--"I wish I hadn't got to
do it ... and at ten o'clock at night into the bargain!"
He looked round him as though considering some serious matter.
"Food--and drink. Here's drink, anyhow. What about food?"
Seizing a hand-lamp from the bureau at his elbow, he quitted the room
and made for the kitchen, which his man had left, as usual, in the
perfection of neatness on his departure two hours ago.
Hastening to the cupboard which did duty, in the flat, for a pantry,
Barry flung open the door and surveyed the shelves with anxious eyes.
Ah! There was plenty of food, of a sort, and suddenly Barry remembered,
with gratitude, the fact that he had intended to dine at home, and had
been prevented doing so at the eleventh hour owing to an unexpected
invitation which he had then regarded as an unmitigated bore, but now
looked upon as a direct interposition of Providence.
A cold roast chicken, an apple tart and cream, cheese and
biscuits--surely the traveller could make a meal off these provisions,
and Barry carried them gaily into the sitting-room and laid the table
with much good-will and no little celerity.
Knives, forks, glasses--for he intended to share the meal--salt, pepper,
bread--in a dozen light-hearted journeys he managed to bring everything
he considered necessary; and he was just standing back to admire his own
handiwork when the electric bell pealed loudly through the silent flat.
"Here he is, by Jove!" Barry all but dropped the vase of chrysanthemums
he was carrying to the table, and setting it down hastily he went to the
door, in a flutter of anticipation, of hospitality, and, if the truth be
told, of nervousness.
Opening the door:
"Is that you, Owen?" he asked--a superfluous question, for he knew his
visitor well enough. "Come in, old chap--you must be soaked--it's a
frightful night!"
"Soaked--I should just say I am!" Owen Rose accepted the invitation and
stepped inside, shaking himself like a dog as he did so. "Lord, Barry,
what a climate! I declare I'd sooner live in Timbuctoo!"
"Oh, the climate's all right--only a bit moist," returned Barry
philosophically. "But come on in--take off your coat and come to the
fire. Any luggage?"
"No, I've sent it on to my place." He drew himself out of his big coat
as he spoke. "I thought I'd come up and see you for half an hour first
of all. Jolly glad you're at home. You got my wire?"
"Yes, a few minutes ago. Come and have something to eat." They were in
the sitting-room by now. "There's not much, but I hadn't time to kill
the fatted calf."
"Looks like it." Owen's eyes roamed over the cheerful little
supper-table. "Barry, you're a fraud. Chicken, apple-pie--what more can
man desire? But I confess I _am_ hungry, though I didn't come for a
meal."
"Well, sit down and let's begin," said Barry practically. "I dined at my
aunt's to-night, and as usual I couldn't get much to eat! She asked me
so many questions about ..." he coloured and hurried on "... about
everything, that by the time I'd finished answering them dinner was
over!"
"I see." Owen accepted the plate Barry handed him. "Well, you're looking
very fit, Barry. How's things?"
"Oh, fair." Barry paused in the act of pouring out a whisky-and-soda.
"That's to say, I'm still with old Joliffe, and got a rise of screw last
quarter."
"Did you! Well, wait till we get the review going, and see if I don't
tempt you away from that dictatorial old boss of yours!"
"Oh, I'll come to you all right," said Barry gaily. "But in the meantime
I'd better hang on in the House of Rimmon, hadn't I? You see ..." He
broke off, the colour mounting to his face.
"Of course. You're thinking of Olive. Quite right, too. How is she,
Barry? Well?"
"A 1." Barry fell to on his supper with renewed zest. "Longing to see
you, old chap. By the way"--he slid rather dexterously away from the
subject--"you promised her a skin or something, didn't you? Have any
luck?"
"Luck! Rather! I bagged one tiger who was really magnificent--he'll make
a grand hearthrug for you and Olive. He was a splendid brute and I was
lucky to get him. Of course, I've had luck all the way through. By gad,
Barry, there's nothing like big-game shooting to make one fit! You know
what I was like when I set out--and look at me now!"
Thus invited, Barry looked; and he was bound to admit that his friend
was right.
Eighteen months previous to this wet night of January, Owen Rose had
been so severely injured in a motor-accident that his life had been
despaired of; and although he had eventually recovered, he had been left
so unlike himself that a return to the normal round was impossible.
There was only one prescription, his doctors agreed, and that was the
agreeable, if expensive, one of travel. Only by gaining complete change
of scene, complete change, also, of life and routine, could he hope to
recapture his old splendid vitality and abundant health; and since
luckily Owen was by no means a poor man, the prescription was not so
hard to carry out as might have been the case with another patient.
True, this break in his life interfered with several cherished projects.
In the first--and most important--place, his marriage must be delayed;
and although Miss Vivian Rees was only twenty, and might be considered
fully young to be a bride, the delay, to the ardent lover, was
vexatious, at the least.
Then the review, to which he had alluded in his conversation with Barry,
had perforce to be shelved; and although there was plenty of time for
the production of such a literary newcomer, he had felt, at the moment,
as though called upon to abandon altogether a beloved ideal.
But the fiat had gone forth; and indeed he had agreed entirely with the
medical verdict which pronounced him unfit to shoulder fresh tasks until
his old strength should be regained. Therefore, unwillingly, but none
the less unflinchingly, he had made preparations to leave England for a
year's leisurely travel in the East, starting, as it were, from Bombay
and journeying onwards wherever the fancy took him.
It happened that during his travels he fell in with a couple of old
schoolfellows who were on the verge of a sporting expedition; and Owen,
who by that time was tired of his loafing method of travel, jumped with
alacrity at an invitation to join the party.
They had glorious sport; and in the excitement and vigour of the chase
Owen regained all his old bodily strength and added thereto a quite
fresh store of health and spirits. When at length he turned his face
homewards he knew himself to be in such condition as he had never before
experienced; and as he sat opposite his host to-night, eating and
drinking gaily in this quiet room, he presented to Barry a picture of
such perfect health as is rarely met with in the streets of London.
"Yes." Barry brought his leisurely survey to a close. "You do look
uncommonly fit, I suppose you've had a gorgeous time."
Thus invited, Owen launched forth into an account of some of his most
thrilling adventures, and the time flew as he recounted the tale of the
glorious nights and days he had lived through, or made his hearer laugh
with his stories of the various attendants and their humours.
The clock had chimed the hour of midnight before the friends left the
table; and then, sitting by the rosy fire, with pipes alight, each one
felt that the moment had come in which a deeper subject might well be
introduced.
Yet Barry, at least, would cheerfully have ignored that subject; for he
foresaw, with friendship's intuition, that the thing he had to say would
effectually mar and break the midnight peace; and as the moment drew
near in which he must strike a fatal blow at his friend's serenity he
fell into an embarrassed silence very unlike his recent cordiality.
At last it came--the question he had dreaded.
"I say, Barry, have you seen much of Vivian lately?" Although the
subject affected the speaker so vitally, he was so calmly, confidently
sure of the reply that his tone was quiet and unagitated. Even though
Barry paused for a quite perceptible fraction of time before he replied,
the other man was too certain of the answer to notice the pause.
"I ... I have seen her--yes." He spoke without removing his pipe from
between his teeth, which might account for the curious thickness of his
tone.
"And how is she? All right, I suppose? You see"--Owen laughed rather
diffidently--"my return was to be a surprise to her. I wasn't coming for
another couple of months, you know, and then all at once I couldn't bear
it any longer. I simply _had_ to come."
"But--haven't you corresponded all this time?"
"Well, not regularly. You know Vivian hates writing letters as much as I
do; and I couldn't give her any settled addresses while we were moving
about, so we agreed that we would not expect much from each other in
that way!"
"I see. But--you _have_ heard from her?"
"Oh, yes, now and then. Of course she had my banker's address and could
cable to me from time to time. I got one cable from her in December--on
my birthday, it was--and she said she was writing, but I never got the
letter."
"In December. I see." And so he did--saw a vision of half-unwilling
treachery, of hesitating loyalty, of dying faith, which turned his heart
sick within him.
"I wrote to her for Christmas, of course, and sent her a card now and
then." He seemed to be excusing his own quite allowable slackness in the
matter. "You see, I really had no time for letter-writing, and I knew
she would understand and forgive me."
"You ... did you tell her you were coming home to-day?"
"Yes. I wired to her a week ago.... I half expected she'd come down to
meet me." He laughed shamefacedly. "But you know what her people are. I
expect they'd think it frightfully unnecessary to do that. Of course,
I'm going there first thing in the morning."
"You ... you haven't been there yet, then?" Barry hated himself for his
fatuity as he put the question.
"No. Fact is, I was a perfect savage when I landed ... a beard half a
yard long!" He laughed jovially. "Had to get trimmed up a bit ... but in
any case she would probably have been out somewhere or other to-night."
"Yes. I see."
"But first thing in the morning, it's a taxi for mine, as the Americans
say. And I shall catch her alone, after breakfast, before anyone's
about."
"Yea." Barry paused, cursing himself for his cowardice, and then plunged
recklessly into the quicksand before him. "Owen, old man, have you heard
anything about Miss Rees lately?"
"Heard anything?" He laid down his pipe and stared at his questioner.
"Why should I hear anything? What is there to hear?"
Before replying Barry rose, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece;
and as he looked down on his friend his heart was wrung within him at
the cruelty of fate.
"You ... you've not seen her name in the papers?" His throat was dry,
but he went on bravely.
"Papers? I've not looked at a newspaper for months. And anyway, what
should I see about Vivian in any paper?"
"Only ... I thought you might have done." Barry was finding his task
almost incredibly hard, and his brow was pearled with fine drops of
moisture as he stood before his friend.
"What was there to see, Barry?" Owen's voice was quiet--dangerously
quiet. "Is there anything wrong with Vivian? Is she--has she been ill?"
"No."
"Then ... God! man, what are you trying to tell me?" His forced calm was
breaking up. "Out with it--whatever it is. Is Vivian--is she _dead_?"
"No--oh, no." He spoke hurriedly, thankful that he could at least answer
that question in the negative.
"Then ... what is it? Come, Barry"--Owen spoke through his teeth in a
hoarse tone quite unlike his usual voice--"if Vivian is not dead, not
ill ... what is this wonderful piece of news I might have read in the
papers--and did not?"
There was a moment's tense silence, broken only by the crackling of the
gay little fire on the hearth.
Then Barry said heavily:
"Miss Rees was married to Lord Saxonby this morning."