QUICKSANDS
To convey any adequate idea of the community familiarly known as
Quicksands a cinematograph were necessary. With a pen we can only
approximate the appearance of the shifting grains at any one time. Some
households there were, indeed, which maintained a precarious though
seemingly miraculous footing on the surface, or near it, going under for
mere brief periods, only to rise again and flaunt men-servants in the
face of Providence.
There were real tragedies, too, although a casual visitor would never
have guessed it. For tragedies sink, and that is the end of them. The
cinematograph, to be sure, would reveal one from time to time, coming
like a shadow across an endless feast, and gone again in a flash. Such
was what might appropriately be called the episode of the Alfred Ferns.
After three years of married life they had come, they had rented; the
market had gone up, they had bought and built--upon the sands. The
ancient farmhouse which had stood on the site had been torn down as
unsuited to a higher civilization, although the great elms which had
sheltered it had been left standing, in grave contrast to the twisted
cedars and stunted oaks so much in evidence round about.
The Ferns--or rather little Mrs. Fern--had had taste, and the new house
reflected it. As an indication of the quality of imagination possessed by
the owners, the place was called "The Brackens." There was a long porch
on the side of the ocean, but a view of the water was shut off from it by
a hedge which, during the successive ownerships of the adjoining
property, had attained a height of twelve feet. There was a little toy
greenhouse connecting with the porch (an "economy" indulged in when the
market had begun to go the wrong way for Mr. Fern). Exile, although
unpleasant, was sometimes found necessary at Quicksands, and even
effective.
Above all things, however, if one is describing Quicksands, one must not
be depressing. That is the unforgiveable sin there. Hence we must touch
upon these tragedies lightly.
If, after walking through the entrance in the hedge that separated the
Brackens from the main road, you turned to the left and followed a
driveway newly laid out between young poplars, you came to a mass of
cedars. Behind these was hidden the stable. There were four stalls, all
replete with brass trimmings, and a box, and the carriage-house was made
large enough for the break which Mr. Fern had been getting ready to buy
when he had been forced, so unexpectedly, to change his mind.
If the world had been searched, perhaps, no greater contrast to Rivington
could have been found than this delightful colony of quicksands, full of
life and motion and colour, where everybody was beautifully dressed and
enjoying themselves. For a whole week after her instalment Honora was in
a continual state of excitement and anticipation, and the sound of wheels
and voices on the highroad beyond the hedge sent her peeping to her
curtains a dozen times a day. The waking hours, instead of burdens, were
so many fleeting joys. In the morning she awoke to breathe a new,
perplexing, and delicious perfume--the salt sea breeze stirring her
curtains: later, she was on the gay, yellow-ochre beach with Lily Dallam,
making new acquaintances; and presently stepping, with a quiver of fear
akin to delight, into the restless, limitless blue water that stretched
southward under a milky haze: luncheon somewhere, more new acquaintances,
and then, perhaps, in Lily's light wood victoria to meet the train of
trains. For at half-past five the little station, forlorn all day long in
the midst of the twisted cedars that grew out of the heated sand, assumed
an air of gayety and animation. Vehicles of all sorts drew up in the open
space before it, wagonettes, phaetons, victorias, high wheeled hackney
carts, and low Hempstead carts: women in white summer gowns and veils
compared notes, or shouted invitations to dinner from carriage to
carriage. The engine rolled in with a great cloud of dust, the horses
danced, the husbands and the overnight guests, grimy and brandishing
evening newspapers, poured out of the special car where they had sat in
arm-chairs and talked stocks all the way from Long Island City. Some were
driven home, it is true; some to the beach, and others to the Quicksands
Club, where they continued their discussions over whiskey-and-sodas
until it was time to have a cocktail and dress for dinner.
Then came the memorable evening when Lily Dallam gave a dinner in honour
of Honora, her real introduction to Quicksands. It was characteristic of
Lily that her touch made the desert bloom. Three years before Quicksands
had gasped to hear that the Sidney Dallams had bought the Faraday house
--or rather what remained of it.
"We got it for nothing," Lily explained triumphantly on the occasion of
Honora's first admiring view. "Nobody would look at it, my dear."
It must have been this first price, undoubtedly, that appealed to Sidney
Dallam, model for all husbands: to Sidney, who had had as much of an idea
of buying in Quicksands as of acquiring a Scotch shooting box. The
"Faraday place" had belonged to the middle ages, as time is reckoned in
Quicksands, and had lain deserted for years, chiefly on account of its
lugubrious and funereal aspect. It was on a corner. Two "for rent" signs
had fallen successively from the overgrown hedge: some fifty feet back
from the road, hidden by undergrowth and in the tenebrous shades of huge
larches and cedars, stood a hideous, two-storied house with a mansard
roof, once painted dark red.
The magical transformation of all this into a sunny, smiling, white villa
with red-striped awnings and well-kept lawns and just enough shade had
done no little towards giving to Lily Dallam that ascendency which she
had acquired with such startling rapidity in the community. When Honora
and Howard drove up to the door in the deepening twilight, every window
was a yellow, blazing square, and above the sound of voices rose a waltz
from "Lady Emmeline" played with vigour on the piano. Lily Dallam greeted
Honora in the little room which (for some unexplained reason) was known
as the library, pressed into service at dinner parties as the ladies'
dressing room.
"My dear, how sweet you look in that coral! I've been so lucky to-night,"
she added in Honora's ear; "I've actually got Trixy Brent for you."
Our heroine was conscious of a pleasurable palpitation as she walked with
her hostess across the little entry to the door of the drawing-room,
where her eyes encountered an inviting and vivacious scene. Some ten or a
dozen guests, laughing and talking gayly, filled the spaces between the
furniture; an upright piano was embedded in a corner, and the lady who
had just executed the waltz had swung around on the stool, and was
smiling up at a man who stood beside her with his hand in his pocket. She
was a decided brunette, neither tall nor short, with a suggestion of
plumpness.
"That's Lula Chandos," explained Lily Dallam in her usual staccato,
following Honora's gaze, "at the piano, in ashes of roses. She's stopped
mourning for her husband. Trixy told her to-night she'd discarded the
sackcloth and kept the ashes. He's awfully clever. I don't wonder that
she's crazy about him, do you? He's standing beside her."
Honora took a good look at the famous Trixy, who resembled a certain type
of military Englishman. He had close-cropped hair and a close-cropped
mustache; and his grey eyes, as they rested amusedly on Mrs. Chandos,
seemed to have in them the light of mockery.
"Trixy!" cried his hostess, threading her way with considerable skill
across the room and dragging Honora after her, "Trixy, I want to
introduce you to Mrs. Spence. Now aren't you glad you came!"
It was partly, no doubt, by such informal introductions that Lily Dallam
had made her reputation as the mistress of a house where one and all had
such a good time. Honora, of course, blushed to her temples, and
everybody laughed--even Mrs. Chandos.
"Glad," said Mr. Brent, with his eyes on Honora, "does not quite express
it. You usually have a supply of superlatives, Lily, which you might have
drawn on."
"Isn't he irrepressible?" demanded Lily Dallam, delightedly, "he's always
teasing."
It was running through Honora's mind, while Lily Dallam's characteristic
introductions of the other guests were in progress, that "irrepressible"
was an inaccurate word to apply to Mr. Brent's manner. Honora could not
define his attitude, but she vaguely resented it. All of Lily's guests
had the air of being at home, and at that moment a young gentleman named
Charley Goodwin, who was six feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds,
was loudly demanding cocktails. They were presently brought by a rather
harassed-looking man-servant.
"I can't get over how well you look in that gown, Lula," declared Mrs.
Dallam, as they went out to dinner. "Trixy, what does she remind you of?"
"Cleopatra," cried Warry Trowbridge, with an attempt to be gallant.
"Eternal vigilance," said Mr. Brent, and they sat down amidst the
laughter, Lily Dallam declaring that he was horrid, and Mrs. Chandos
giving him a look of tender reproach. But he turned abruptly to Honora,
who was on his other side.
"Where did you drop down from, Mrs. Spence?" he inquired.
"Why do you take it for granted that I have dropped?" she asked sweetly.
He looked at her queerly for a moment, and then burst out laughing.
"Because you are sitting next to Lucifer," he said. "It's kind of me to
warn you, isn't it?"
"It wasn't necessary," replied Honora. "And besides, as a dinner
companion, I imagine Lucifer couldn't be improved on."
He laughed again.
"As a dinner companion!" he repeated. "So you would limit Lucifer to
dinners? That's rather a severe punishment, since we're neighbours."
"How delightful to have Lucifer as one's neighbour," said Honora,
avoiding his eyes. "Of course I've been brought up to believe that he was
always next door, so to speak, but I've never--had any proof of it until
now."
"Proof!" echoed Mr. Brent. "Has my reputation gone before me?"
"I smell the brimstone," said Honora.
He derived, apparently, infinite amusement from this remark likewise.
"If I had known I was to have the honour of sitting here, I should have
used another perfume," he replied. "I have several."
It was Honora's turn to laugh.
"They are probably for--commercial transactions, not for ladies," she
retorted. "We are notoriously fond of brimstone, if it is not too strong.
A suspicion of it."
Her colour was high, and she was surprised at her own vivacity. It seemed
strange that she should be holding her own in this manner with the
renowned Trixton Brent. No wonder, after four years of Rivington, that
she tingled with an unwonted excitement.
At this point Mr. Brent's eye fell upon Howard, who was explaining
something to Mrs. Trowbridge at the far end of the table.
"What's your husband like?" he demanded abruptly.
Honora was a little taken aback, but recovered sufficiently to retort:
"You'd hardly expect me to give you an unprejudiced judgment."
"That's true," he agreed significantly.
"He's everything," added Honora, "that is to be expected in a husband."
"Which isn't much, in these days," declared Mr. Brent.
"On the contrary," said Honora.
"What I should like to know is why you came to Quicksands," said Mr.
Brent.
"For a little excitement," she replied. "So far, I have not been
disappointed. But why do you ask that question?" she demanded, with a
slight uneasiness. "Why did you come here?"
"Oh," he said, "you must remember that I'm--Lucifer, a citizen of the
world, at home anywhere, a sort of 'freebooter. I'm not here all the
time--but that's no reflection on Quicksands. May I make a bet with you,
Mrs. Spence?"
"What about?"
"That you won't stay in Quicksands more than six months," he answered.
"Why do you say that?" she asked curiously.
He shook his head.
"My experience with your sex," he declared enigmatically, "has not been a
slight one."
"Trixy!" interrupted Mrs. Chandos at this juncture, from his other side,
"Warry Trowbridge won't tell me whether to sell my Consolidated Potteries
stock."
"Because he doesn't know," said Mr. Brent, laconically, and readdressed
himself to Honora, who had, however, caught a glimpse of Mrs. Chandos'
face.
"Don't you think it's time for you to talk to Mrs. Chandos?" she asked.
"What for?"
"Well, for one reason, it is customary, out of consideration for the
hostess, to assist in turning the table."
"Lily doesn't care," he said.
"How about Mrs. Chandos? I have an idea that she does care."
He made a gesture of indifference.
"And how about me?" Honora continued. "Perhaps--I'd like to talk to Mr.
Dallam."
"Have you ever tried it?" he demanded.
Over her shoulder she flashed back at him a glance which he did not
return. She had never, to tell the truth, given her husband's partner
much consideration. He had existed in her mind solely as an obliging
shopkeeper with whom Lily had unlimited credit, and who handed her over
the counter such things as she desired. And to-night, in contrast to
Trixton Brent, Sidney Dallam suggested the counter more than ever before.
He was about five and forty, small, neatly made, with little hands and
feet; fast growing bald, and what hair remained to him was a jet black.
His suavity of manner and anxious desire to give one just the topic that
pleased had always irritated Honora.
Good shopkeepers are not supposed to have any tastes, predilections, or
desires of their own, and it was therefore with no little surprise that,
after many haphazard attempts, Honora discovered Mr, Dallam to be
possessed by one all-absorbing weakness. She had fallen in love, she
remarked, with little Sid on the beach, and Sidney Dallam suddenly became
transfigured. Was she fond of children? Honora coloured a little, and
said "yes." He confided to her, with an astonishing degree of feeling,
that it had been the regret of his life he had not had more children.
Nobody, he implied, who came to his house had ever exhibited the proper
interest in Sid.
"Sometimes," he said, leaning towards her confidentially, "I slip
upstairs for a little peep at him after dinner."
"Oh," cried Honora, "if you're going to-night mayn't I go with you? I'd
love to see him in bed."
"Of course I'll take you," said Sidney Dallam, and he looked at her so
gratefully that she coloured again.
"Honora," said Lily Dallam, when the women were back in the drawing-room,
"what did you do to Sid? You had him beaming--and he hates dinner
parties."
"We were talking about children," replied Honora, innocently.
"Children!"
"Yes," said Honora, "and your husband has promised to take me up to the
nursery."
"And did you talk to Trixy about children, too?" cried Lily, laughing,
with a mischievous glance at Mrs. Chandos.
"Is he interested in them?" asked Honora.
"You dear!" cried Lily, "you'll be the death of me. Lula, Honora wants to
know whether Trixy is interested in children."
Mrs. Chandos, in the act of lighting a cigarette, smiled sweetly.
"Apparently he is," she said.
"It's time he were, if he's ever going to be," said Honora, just as
sweetly.
Everybody laughed but Mrs. Chandos, who began to betray an intense
interest in some old lace in the corner of the room.
"I bought it for nothing, my dear," said Mrs. Dallam, but she pinched
Honora's arm delightedly. "How wicked of you!" she whispered, "but it
serves her right."
In the midst of the discussion of clothes and house rents and other
people's possessions, interspersed with anecdotes of a kind that was new
to Honora, Sidney Dallam appeared at the door and beckoned to her.
"How silly of you, Sid!" exclaimed his wife; "of course she doesn't want
to go."
"Indeed I do," protested Honora, rising with alacrity and following her
host up the stairs. At the end of a hallway a nurse, who had been reading
beside a lamp, got up smilingly and led the way on tiptoe into the
nursery, turning on a shaded electric light. Honora bent over the crib.
The child lay, as children will, with his little yellow head resting on
his arm. But in a moment, as she stood gazing at him, he turned and
opened his eyes and smiled at her, and she stooped and kissed him.
"Where's Daddy?" he demanded.
"We've waked him!" said Honora, remorsefully.
"Daddy," said the child, "tell me a story."
The nurse looked at Dallam reproachfully, as her duty demanded, and yet
she smiled. The noise of laughter reached them from below.
"I didn't have any to-night," the child pleaded.
"I got home late," Dallam explained to Honora, and, looking at the nurse,
pleaded in his turn; "just one."
"Just a tiny one," said the child.
"It's against all rules, Mr. Dallam," said the nurse, "but--he's been
very lonesome to-day."
Dallam sat down on one side of him, Honora on the other.
"Will you go to sleep right away if I do, Sid?" he asked.
The child shut his eyes very tight.
"Like that," he promised.
It was not the Sidney Dallam of the counting-room who told that story,
and Honora listened with strange sensations which she did not attempt to
define.
"I used to be fond of that one when I was a youngster," he explained
apologetically to her as they went out, and little Sid had settled
himself obediently on the pillow once more. "It was when I dreamed," he
added, "of less prosaic occupations than the stock market."
Sidney Dallam had dreamed!
Although Lily Dallam had declared that to leave her house before midnight
was to insult her, it was half-past eleven when Honora and her husband
reached home. He halted smilingly in her doorway as she took off her wrap
and laid it over a chair.
"Well, Honora," he asked, "how do you like--the whirl of fashion?"
She turned to him with one of those rapid and bewildering movements that
sometimes characterized her, and put her arms on his shoulders.
"What a dear old stay-at-home you were, Howard," she said. "I wonder what
would have happened to you if I hadn't rescued you in the nick of time!
Own up that you like--a little variety in life."
Being a man, he qualified his approval.
"I didn't have a bad time," he admitted. "I had a talk with Brent after
dinner, and I think I've got him interested in a little scheme. It's a
strange thing that Sid Dallam was never able to do any business with him.
If I can put this through, coming to Quicksands will have been worth
while." He paused a moment, and added: "Brent seems to have taken quite a
shine to you, Honora."
She dropped her arms, and going over to her dressing table, unclasped a
pin on the front of her gown.
"I imagine," she answered, in an indifferent tone, "that he acts so with
every new woman he meets."
Howard remained for a while in the doorway, seemingly about to speak.
Then he turned on his heel, and she heard him go into his own room.
Far into the night she lay awake, the various incidents of the evening,
like magic lantern views, thrown with bewildering rapidity on the screen
of her mind. At last she was launched into life, and the days of her
isolation gone by forever. She was in the centre of things. And yet
--well, nothing could be perfect. Perhaps she demanded too much. Once or
twice, in the intimate and somewhat uproarious badinage that had been
tossed back and forth in the drawing-room after dinner, her delicacy had
been offended: an air of revelry had prevailed, enhanced by the arrival
of whiskey-and-soda on a tray. And at the time she had been caught up by
an excitement in the grip of which she still found herself. She had been
aware, as she tried to talk to Warren Trowbridge, of Trixton Brent's
glance, and of a certain hostility from Mrs. Chandos that caused her now
to grow warm with a kind of shame when she thought of it. But she could
not deny that this man had for her a fascination. There was in him an
insolent sense of power, of scarcely veiled contempt for the company in
which he found himself. And she asked herself, in this mood of
introspection, whether a little of his contempt for Lily Dallam's guests
had not been communicated from him to her.
When she had risen to leave, he had followed her into the entry. She
recalled him vividly as he had stood before her then, a cigar in one hand
and a lighted match in the other, his eyes fixed upon her with a
singularly disquieting look that was tinged, however, with amusement.
"I'm coming to see you," he announced.
"Do be careful," she had cried, "you'll burn yourself!"
"That," he answered, tossing away the match, "is to be expected."
She laughed nervously.
"Good night," he added, "and remember my bet."
What could he have meant when he had declared that she would not remain
in Quicksands?