"I am going to Cliff End on Friday, Estelle. Will you come? We'll start
at eight, and get back about ten."
"I'd love to. London is baking me."
June heat glowed through the huge city; the pavements were hot under
the fierce sun; the air felt used up, heavy; the packed streets
vibrated under their load of wheeled monsters, of swooping, gliding
taxis. Everyone was going somewhere; busy, smiling, full of the
business of pleasure. Old faces were lined under powder and face cream;
young ones had lost their colour a little.
Perfectly gowned, with hair in the order of the moment, faintly
scented, smiling, woman, hawk-like, swooped on her natural prey, man.
Soft debutantes, white-robed, hopeful, fluttered as they dreamt of the
matches which they might make. Anxious, youthful mothers spent their
all, and more, to give their girls a chance. Older girls smiled more
confidently, yet were less hopeful of drawing some great prize.
There, walking along quietly in morning coat, a slouching, keen-eyed
young fellow; a flutter as he passes.
"See, Audrey! Lord Golderly. Evie, bow; did you not see Lord Golderly?"
Or from more intimate friends: "Sukey! There's Joss. Call him over!
He's thinner than ever! Mum! there's Jossy! Ask him to our little
dinner--he might come."
The Marquis of Golderly, with eighty thousand a year, with a panelled
house in Yorkshire, a castle in Scotland, with Golderly House in
Piccadilly--let now to rich Americans--had strolled by. A
pleasant-looking, well-made boy, with his mind full of his new polo
pony, and not in the least interested in the Ladies Evie and Audrey, or
in his cousin Sukey. Some day he must marry, but not yet.
Another flutter: a girl runs laughing to catch her toy pom, showing her
lithe, active limbs as she slips along.
"There comes Sir Edward Castleknock," a little elderly man, his income
lately depleted by a white marble tombstone to his second wife, but he
has no heir; he must marry again, and he is a rich man. The youthful
mothers signal to him, stopping him carelessly, calling to their girls
as he stops.
"Here's my little Evie, grown up, Sir Edward; you used to give her
sugared almonds. Makes one so ancient, doesn't it?"
Evie musters a smile for the memory of sugared almonds. She says
something conventional with a show of excellent teeth. Sir Edward is
musical. Milady invites him to hear the dear child sing; to lunch on
Sunday--one-thirty--the old address.
One mamma has got a start of her competitors; captured the widower as
he emerges from the sombre draped doors of his mourning.
"To sing?" Lady Evie wrinkles a pretty nose. "Well, Mumsie, don't let
it get past 'Violets' and that French song; they are the only two dear
old Monsieur could ever get me to sing in tune."
They work hard, these mothers, for their daughters, for what is life
without riches and places, and a niche in Society's walls? What waste
of bringing up, of French and German governesses, of dancing lessons
and swimming lessons, and dull classes, if Evie or Audrey merely
married some ordinary youngster, to disappear with him upon a couple of
thousand a year!
So many competitors, so few prizes. The race is to the swift, and the
strong, and the astute; to the matron who knows not only how to seize
opportunity, but not to release it again until it puts a ring upon her
daughter's massaged hand.
So Evie and Sue and Audrey must stifle the natural folly which nature
has placed in their fresh young hearts, and help "Mum" to the proud
hour when her daughter will count her wedding presents by the hundred,
and smile sweetly on the bevy of maidens who are still running in the
race.
Some, without kindly, clever mothers, must fight for themselves, and in
the fight use strange methods to attain their prize. Crooked ways,
cut-off corners, wrong side of posts; yet they too smile quite as
contentedly if they win at the last.
Young Golderly has been stopped a dozen times; he has seen sweet
smiles, caught flashing glances. Evie has called attention to her
lovely feet by knocking one against a chair. Audrey has whispered to
him that she _adores_ polo; will be at Hurlingham to-day.
"To see you hit a goal," she coos; "oh! how I shall clap!"
"She may be a little wild--my new pony," he says, his mind still full
of that piece of bay symmetry, a race-horse in miniature, and slips
away. Golderly had come to meet a friend who would have talked of
nothing but polo ponies; he has missed him, and the pretty runners of
the race strive and jostle until they bore him sadly.
He turns to slip away, to get back to his club by a round across the
Park, and then gasps, smitten roughly, his hat bumping on to the path.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Blow these hobble skirts. Blow the things!" says a
girl's voice.
Kitty Harrington, a big, clumsy maiden, freckles powdering her clear
skin. "A badly-dressed touzled young woman," is the verdict passed on
her.
Kitty is having her season without any clever, youthful mother; she is
under the charge of her aunt, Lady Harrington, who does not take much
notice of her, and thinks the girl a foolish tomboy.
"Snap was running out to where the motors are," says Kitty,
guilelessly, "and he might get hurt. We were doing a scamper on the
grass."
Snap is a rough terrier of uncertain pedigree, unwillingly confined in
London.
"He ties his lead round people's legs if I drag him through the crowd,"
Kitty goes on. "So we keep away and make believe it's country. Oh! if
it was! And then this skirt tripped me."
Young Golderly looks at her. A big, rather clumsy girl, but open-eyed,
fresh from eighteen years of country life; a girl who has learnt to
swim in the open sea; whose gymnastics have been practised up trees.
"They are rotten things to try to run in," he says, smiling boyishly,
"those skirts. Haven't I met you somewhere? I'm Lord Golderly." Here he
pursues his hat, which Snap is treating as if it were a rat.
"Oh! goodness! Oh! I have been clumsy." Kitty is all pink cheeks and
tearful eyes; she dabs them surreptitiously. "Oh! your poor best
hat--all torn! Oh! I am a clumsy girl--never meant for London. No, I
haven't met you. I'm Miss Harrington--Lady Harrington's niece."
"I know her!" Jossy, master of eighty thousand a year, grins as he
examines his hat brim. "Are you going to the match to-day--to
Hurlingham?"
"N--no," Kitty's lips droop. "Auntie's made up her party! And oh! I do
love polo. We play at home, the boys and I. I've such a pony! Have you
got a nice one?"
"A nice one!" Young Golderly grins again; this girl is like a breath of
fresh country air blowing across the moorlands. Evidently his name
conveys nothing to her.
"I've twenty," he says, laughing.
"Oh, then you're rich! How jolly! If I were rich--"
"Well?" he asks.
Kitty puts her head on one side.
"I'd have hunters; three of them, all my own. Not the boys', which I
borrow. And I'd have a motor and drive it; and give Mumsie a new fur
coat--hers is old. And I'd have otter hounds."
"Oh, you like that too? Otter hunting," he says eagerly.
"Oh, yes!" Kitty shows a set of strong even teeth. "It's so jolly up in
the early mornings when all the grass is washing in dew; and hunting up
the rivers; and the dogs working. And then isn't breakfast good?" says
Kitty, prosaically. "I'd cook mine on the river bank. I make fine
scrambled eggs, and I can toast bacon till it's just sumptuous."
Of course Kitty can have no idea that Golderly has hunted a pack of
otter hounds for some years.
The boy looks at her again. She is so fresh and natural and friendly.
The skin under her freckles is singularly fine; her eyes are bright,
her active figure at its worst in a ridiculous hobble skirt.
"Say! I can't go back there," he nods towards the strolling crowd, "in
Snap's handiwork. Let's walk across the grass."
"I want to get to Lancaster Gate. Right!" says Kitty, "we live there,
you know."
As they go they talk of ponies and horses and terriers and otters and
tennis, and when they part young Golderly takes a brown, shapely,
gloveless hand in his and shakes it warmly.
"Come to the match; come to see me play," he says. "I'll take you over
to the ponies and show you my beauties. You ought to come."
Kitty rushes in to her aunt. "Auntie! get Hurlingham tickets somewhere.
You must!" And Kitty tells of her adventure.
When a year later big Kitty marches sedately down the aisle of a
country church on the arm of her husband, a Marquis, she manages her
trailing skirts cleverly enough.
A rank outsider, a creature not even mentioned in the betting; but a
letter from Kitty's dearest friend might prove that she need not have
tripped so grievously over her hobble skirt; while further experience
proved that she was lazy about otter hunting, and that behind the
ingenuous face lay a shrewd and far-seeing brain. The letter was to
"Dearest Kit."
"Shame of Auntie May not to bother about you," it ran. "I met young
Lord Golderly at Marches Hall last week-end. He's just your sort--all
sport. Get to meet him somehow and talk horses--_polo ponies_ and
_otter hunting_; he's sick of Society."
The future Lady Golderly carefully tore up that letter.
Estelle Reynolds turned from watching the flow of life stream past her
to speak to Bertie Carteret.
Estelle was a mere outsider there, knowing very few people--just a few
of Esme's friends. She liked to see them flutter up and down, meeting,
parting, always going on somewhere, always chattering of the hundred
things which they had got to do.
"I should like to go to Cliff End," repeated Estelle. "The love of
London is not with me, though for two years, perhaps three, I must stay
here, until my mother comes from her travels, in fact."
"Unless--you marry," Bertie said slowly.
In some vague way the thought vexed him.
Estelle laughed. "There is the curate," she said, "but I am not High
Church enough to please him. Yes, there is the curate. I am far too
ordinary and stupid for Esme's friends to look at me, and I meet no
others. My marriage must be deferred until we take up the house in
Northamptonshire, and then some country squire will suit me and not
notice my last year's frocks."
"Not notice you," Bertie snorted. "Stupid young tailor's blocks, always
going on. You don't notice them."
"Oh, they're not all stupid," Estelle said. "Mr Turner told me three
hands which he had played at bridge the night before, and had crushin'
luck in them all. He couldn't be stupid with that memory. How is Esme?"
"Frightfully busy," Bertie laughed. "Her latest evening gown was not a
success. She is weighed down between the choice of pure white or pure
black for a new opera cloak. Someone is coming to lunch, and the new
cook's soufflets are weary things, given to sitting down. Also her ices
melt; and she cannot _saute_ potatoes; it is French for frying, isn't
it? Look here! come in old clothes, and we'll be babies and help to
make hay. This day is taken up by a luncheon, by tea at the Carlton,
dinner at the Holbrooks', an evening party. I have struck at two
dances, as I have to get up early."
Esme had gone to Madame Claire's to storm over this new gown of golden
soft chiffon and silk. It dragged; it did not fit. She found Madame
Claire inaccessible. Mrs Carteret bought a few gowns, but my Lady
Blakeney was choosing six--two models, two copies, two emanating from
Madame Jane Claire's slightly torpid English brains. She had her
country's desire for buttons and for trimmings.
But Denise's order was lavish; it meant petticoats, wraps to match; it
meant items of real lace. How then to spare sorrow because one golden
yellow evening gown ordered by a Mrs Carteret had been too hurriedly
finished.
"Tell Madame that I am really pressed for time. Can she not spare me
five minutes?"
Madame was with Lady Blakeney, very busy with an order, the forewoman
was also engaged. A slender young woman in black satin glided back with
the message. Would Madame call again later, make an appointment? Had
Madame seen one of the latest scarves? Quite charming, only five
guineas. Black satin dexterously whisked out a wisp of chiffon. "No!
Madame did not want a scarf."
Denise was behind the strawberry silk curtains hiding in Madame's
sanctum. Esme felt hurt, sore. It was always Denise--always Denise.
She, Esme, was no one.
She got up, looking at her tall, slight figure in one of the long
glasses; she grew flushed, angry.
"I have not time to call again. Please tell Madame that the evening
gown is impossible, a strait-waistcoat. I was to have worn it to-night
at a dance. Now I must wear an old gown of Lucille's--which at least
fits." Esme flounced out, wiping the dust of the strawberry-hued
_salon_ from her tightly-shod feet.
Half an hour later Madame Claire heard the message.
"Alter it," she said carelessly. "Let it out. I expect she'll give me
up now. Send her her bill at once."
The heat beat down in quivering waves. All London shopped, buying,
buying, since freshness lasted but for a few days, and one must not be
seen in a gown more than three or four times.
Tinsels and chiffons and laces; feather ruffles; silks and crepes and
muslins; gloves and silken stockings piled up on the mahogany counters
for Society to buy. Subtle-tongued assistants lauded their wares; there
was always something which Madame had not dreamt of buying, but which
she suddenly discovered to be an absolute necessity.
The flower-shops showed their sheaves of cut blossoms, long-stemmed
roses, carnations, lilies, pinks, monster sweet peas. Things out of
season nestled in baskets in the fruiterers. Wealth everywhere, gold or
promise of gold; electric motors gliding noiselessly. Slim youngsters
taking their morning stroll; brown-skinned soldiers up for a few days,
spending in shops behind windows which Madame and Mademoiselle passed
without a glance. The richest city in the world gathered its summer
harvest; and white-faced poverty, sometimes straying from their poor
country, looking on, dully, resentfully envious. Sewing-machines flew
in the sweltering heat, needles darted, rows of girls sat working
breathlessly, that great ladies might not be disappointed.
"I must have that embroidered gown for the Duchess's party, Madame."
"Certainly, milady, without fail."
Then a visit to the workroom--a whisper to two pale girls.
"You two must stay overtime to-night, get that dress finished. It
mustn't get out, either--be careful!"
So, when their breath of air might be snatched, the two would stitch on
under the dazzle of electric light, drink strong tea and eat bread and
butter, and never dare to grumble, for there were fifty other girls who
could be taken instead of them.
Esme strolled up Bond Street. She bought a ruffle which caught her
fancy; she stopped to talk to half a dozen people; but she strolled on,
her goal a soot-smirched square where a baby would be taking its airing.
He was there, under his white awning, looking a little pale, a little
peaked, wilting in the heat.
Mrs Stanson knew her visitor, smiled at her, never quite understood why
Esme came to the square so often. Esme asked for Denise first; she was
always careful to know that she was out before she came, then went into
the gardens.
There was no air in it; the trees had no freshness; the grass looked
dull and unwholesome.
"Isn't he very white, Mrs Stanson--peaky?"
"He should be in the country," Mrs Stanson said. "Down where his
windows'd let in air at night and not the smuts from the chimneys. But
her ladyship--she thinks different; she hates the country. I saw little
Lord Helmington go in a hot summer because they wouldn't open
Helmington Hall to send him down there with me."
"But he--Cyrrie--he won't go?" Esme caught at the small soft fingers,
moist with heat. A sudden fear gripped her heart.
"Was Denise going to kill the boy? Of course she did not care."
"Take care of him, Mrs Stanson. Oh! take care of him. I was there when
he was born, you know. I used to act nurse for him. Aren't there those
ozone things you hang up in bedrooms? Or, can't you get him away?"
Esme hung over the baby, jealous of his little life, panting, afraid.
Mrs Stanson had taken several gold pieces from the child's visitor. She
shrugged her plump shoulders.
"Her ladyship doesn't care for children, Mrs Carteret, and that's the
truth. She says I fuss, talk nonsense. He don't even get a drive every
day, and Sir Cyril, he comes in, but he's her ladyship's husband. Hssh!
baby, hssh!"
For little Cyril began to cry querulously, wrinkling his peaky face.
Esme bent over him, crooning to him, her motherhood awake. Now she knew
her madness. For this was hers, and she would have sent him away to
breathe fresh air and grow into a big, strong man like Bertie.
"It's a pity, mem, you haven't got one." The nurse lifted up the
fretful child.
"It is--a pity." Esme's face was white and strained, the two patches of
rouge standing out; she looked grey, old. "Oh, it is a pity, nurse,"
she swayed.
"Laws! Mrs Carteret, you're ill. It's this cruel heat. Sit you there,
and I'll run in for salts or a little sal volatile."
"No." Esme recovered herself. "No, nurse, thank you. It's only the
heat. Well, take care of him; and better not tell her ladyship that I
came over. She never likes my looking at the boy."
Esme knew now--she knew what a fool she had been. How, snatching at her
ease, her comfort, her enjoyment, she had lost the boy who brought love
with him. There was nothing to be done, nothing to be said; she dared
not tell at this stage. Bertie would never forgive her. She might even
be denied, disproved, by some jugglery.
She went heavily homewards, walking on the hot pavement.
An electric limousine flashed by her; a smiling face bowed, a
white-gloved hand was waved. Denise was going home to luncheon. Bond
Street again, less crowded now. Esme saw a girl jump lightly from a
taxi, turn to smile at someone inside. It was Sybil Chauntsey; the taxi
passed Esme and pulled up; she saw Jimmie Gore Helmsley get out.
Where had these two been so early? They had got out separately, as if
concealment were necessary. What a fool the girl was! What a fool!
Esme hailed a taxi; she was lunching at the Ritz, had asked three
friends there. Bah! it would cost so much, and be over and forgotten in
an hour.
With a smile set on a weary face, Esme drove on. She would snatch at
amusement more greedily than ever!
At eight in the morning a great London station is fully awake, but not
yet stifling and noisy; the cool air of the night still lurks about the
platforms; the glass has not got hot; the early people are cool
themselves.
Bertie was up early so as to call for Estelle; his taxi sped to the
quiet square where her aunt lived. A gloomy place, with tall houses
standing in formidable respectability, where grave old butlers opened
doors, and broughams and victorias still came round to take their
owners for an airing.
Estelle was on the doorstep, cool and fresh, one of the few people who
can get up early without looking sleepy.
They flew to Devonshire.
"First class!" Estelle frowned as she saw her ticket. "Oh, Captain
Carteret!"
"This is my day," he pleaded. "To be economical travelling one must be
economical in company. Come along."
They had an empty carriage; going down to the restaurant for
breakfast--a little gritty as train breakfasts are, but excellent.
London slipped away; they ran past lush meadows, past placid streams,
old farmhouses sheltered by trees. The countryside was alive with busy
workers. Steel knives cut the grass and laid it in fragrant swathes.
Steel teeth tossed it up through the hot, dry air. It was perfect
weather for saving hay, for gathering the early harvest. The earth
gives to us living, takes our clay to its heart when our spirits have
left it.
The heat mists swept up slowly from the world; fairy vapours floating
heavenwards until the summer's day was clear in its sunlit beauty; and
they tore into far Devon with the salt breath of the sea in the faint
wind.
A dogcart met them at the station; a short drive, with the sea pulsing
far below them, brought them to Cliff End. An old house standing amid a
blaze of flowers, it was its owner's whim to have it kept up as if he
were living there. There were quaintly-shaped rooms, with windows flung
wide. Estelle ran through them, getting her first glimpse of a true
English home, while Bertie went over accounts and did his business.
The housekeeper, a smiling dame, appeared breathlessly just as he came
in.
She was ashamed not to be there to meet them, but old bones moved
slowly; she had been down to the Home Farm to see a sick child there.
"We'm right glad to see your good lady at last," she smiled at Estelle,
holding out a wrinkled hand. Mrs Corydon was a privileged friend of the
family.
"Not my good lady," Bertie said hurriedly, "a friend, Mrs Corydon." But
his face changed suddenly; he grew red.
Man is a being dependent on his dinner; their late luncheon was perfect
of its kind. Grilled trout, chicken, Devonshire cream, and strawberries.
"It's such a glorious old place." Estelle looked round the panelled
room. "If one could live here one could be happy simply being alive."
"Some people could," he said quietly. "Esme would die of boredom in a
week."
"Of boredom, with those flowers outside, with the sea crooning so
close," she said.
"But in winter," he answered, "there are no flowers, and the sea would
roar."
"Then there would be fires," said Estelle, "and hunting, and books; and
always fresh air. I stifle in London."
The day was a long joy to her, so deep it might have made her pause to
think.
They went to the hayfields, breathing in the scent of the fragrant
grass; tossing it themselves, foolish, as children might have done;
wandering off to the river where it whispered between rocky banks. A
stretch of golden brown and silver clear, of dark shadow and plashing
ripple, green-hued where the long weeds stretched their plumes beneath
the water, eddying, swirling, gliding, until it spread out upon
Trelawney Bay, and wandered lost amongst the sands, looking for the
sea. Great ferns grew among the rocks; dog roses tangled in the hedges;
sometimes a feeding trout would break a flat with his soft ploop-ploop
as he sucked down the fly; or smaller fish would fling and plash in
shallow places, making believe that they were great creatures as they
fed.
Bertie had asked for the tea to be sent out to them. It came in a
basket, and they lighted a spirit lamp, laying it out close to the
shimmering sea.
Mrs Corydon had sent down wonderful cakes, splits and nun's puffs, and
a jar of the inevitable cream. It was a feast eaten by two fools who
forgot human nature.
They gave the basket to the boy, wandered on to the cliffs. Here, with
a meadow rippling in waves of green behind them, they sat down. It was
cooler now. They sat in the shade of a high bank with the blue,
diamond-spangled water far below, emerald-hued and indigo, where it
lapped in shadow by the cliff. With the salt scent of it mingling with
the scent of grass and flowers and hot sun-baked turf. Gulls wheeled
screaming softly. They were quite alone in the glory of the country.
Estelle, a little tired, lay back against the bank, dropped suddenly
asleep; her slender browned hands lay close to Bertie; as she moved her
head came almost against his shoulder, so that to make her more
comfortable he moved a little to support it.
A sudden thrill ran through him; her nearness, the touch of her cheek
against his arm; her childish trust and abandon. The thrill was one of
content followed by fear. What was he learning to feel for this girl
from South Africa, this mere friend and companion?
"Companion? Had Esme ever been one?" Looking back he realized that
there are two sorts of love; one when man is ruled by man alone, and
one when passion and friendship can walk hand in hand; a pair, once
mated, whom death alone can part.
He recalled his first meeting with his wife, and how her brilliant
beauty had allured him.
How she had taken his worship carelessly, as a thing of every day; and
how always she had relied on her beauty as the natural power of woman
without dreaming of any other. A touch of her round arms about his
neck, a hot kiss--these were her arguments--arguments which, until
lately, had never failed. If he talked of outside things she would pout
and yawn, and bring him back to the centre of the world--her beauty.
"There were other girls; tell me about them; were they as pretty as I
am, Bert?"
"Never--never!" he had to assure her. If he talked of the sunshine she
would laugh and ask if it did not make her hair look red. Her hands,
her feet, her fingers--she was never weary of having them praised. And
yet she lacked the joy of losing herself in love; she had a merciless
power of analysing emotion, because she did not feel it deeply herself.
In all his transports, Bertie knew there had been something missing; he
had been the lover, she content to be loved.
The true companionship which can keep silence was never theirs.
Now, with the sea of grass waving behind them, and the sea crooning,
crooning, so far below, the man was afraid. Was there a second sort of
love, and had he missed the best thing in life?
He loved the clean airs of the country, sport of all kinds, a home to
go to. Yet he must spend his days in close streets, in an eternal rush
of entertainment and entertaining; to go home to a little portion of a
great building, where he was merely one of the tenants of a flat.
If no one was coming, the little drawing-room was left bare of flowers,
neglected. Esme said she could not afford them every day. If he came
home to tea, an injured maid brought him a cup of cold stuff, probably
warmed from the morning's teapot, with two slices of bread and butter
on a plate.
This woman, sleeping so quietly, her long dark lashes lying on a
sun-kissed cheek, would create a home, live in the quiet country, find
companionship without eternal rushing about to her fellow-mortals;
enjoy her month or two away, and then enjoy doubly the coming to her
own home.
Man, with his pipe in his mouth and sitting in silence, dreams
foolishly as some growing girl.
In Bertie's dream he saw Cliff End inhabited; he went round his farms,
came back to the gardens to walk in them with a slender figure by his
side, with a hundred things to think of, a hundred things to do. The
simpler things which weld home life together. He saw toddling mites
running to meet him, crying to their dada; a boy who must learn to swim
and shoot and ride; a bonnie girl who would learn too, but less
strenuously. He saw cold winter shut out, and two people who sat before
a great fire, contented to sit still and talk or read. So thinking, the
dream passed from waking; his eyes closed, and he, too, fell asleep.
A man strolling along the cliffs paused suddenly, whistled and paused,
looking down at the two.
A sly-eyed, freckled youth, who whistled again, drew back, clicked the
shutter of the camera he carried, and went on, laughing.
"A pretty picture," he said contemptuously.
Bertie awoke with the faint whistle in his ears--woke to find Estelle's
ruffled head close against his own. He sat up, wondering how long he
had been asleep.
The freckled stranger was visible just dipping down to the steep path
which led to the sea.
"I hope he did not see us. Good Lord! I hope he did not see us!"
Estelle woke too, coming from sleep as a child does, rose-flushed,
blinking, rubbing her eyes.
"Oh! I have been asleep," she cried, "wasting our day."
"Our day," he said, as if the words hurt him.
He pulled her to her feet. Estelle was not beautiful, but in her sweet,
clear eyes, in the curve of her mouth, the soft brownness of her skin
was something more dangerous than mere beauty. It was soul shining
through her grey eyes, the power of love, the possibility of passion.
It was intelligence, sympathy. Who wisely said some women make nets
and others cages?
Esme, Denise, Dollie, women of their type, could hold their cages out,
catch a bird and watch it flutter, but, wearying of him, forget his
sugar and his bird-seed, and leave the door open with the careless
certainty of finding another capture.
But with a net woven about him, a strong net made of such soft stuff
that it did not hurt, the captive bird was caught for life, meshed,
ensnared for ever.
"Come--it is late," Bertie said.
As his hands closed on hers, Estelle felt the flush on her cheeks
deepen, her hands grow cold. There is a wonder to all in the dawn of
love; with some it leaps from the cold night into a sudden glow, not so
much dawn as a glorious revealing of the sun. It was so with Estelle;
there was no trembling opal in her mental sky, no gradual melting of
the mists of twilight. She knew. She loved this man. He was another
woman's husband, but she loved him--would love him to her life's end.
He must never know, and yet, being intensely human as he helped her up
the bank, there was a sick longing that he might care too, even if it
meant their instant parting.
She fought it back; she was loyal and simple; her love must be her own;
her joy and her despair.
"Hurry, Estelle; we shall miss the train," he said. "It's very late."
They were further away than they thought. The path by the river was
rough; they ran panting up to the old house to see the man driving the
dog-cart away from the door.
"It bain't no use, sir," he said; "she'm near station now, and it's two
mile an' more."
"There's another?" Bertie said.
There was one more, getting them into London at four next morning.
Estelle was put out, half frightened. Her aunt would be annoyed.
"But she will know it is an accident," she said. "And we can see the
sea by moonshine now."
They saw it as they drove to the slow train, a wide shimmer of mystery,
silver and grey and opal, frostily chill, wondrously limitless; the
hoarse whisper of its waves booming through the still night.
"Esme! Will Esme mind?" Estelle asked as they steamed into London.
"She has gone to several balls; she will never know," he said a little
bitterly.
He did not see Esme again until next evening. The knowledge of this new
thing in his life made him penitent, anxious to find again the charm of
the golden hair, of the brilliantly-tinted skin. He came from a long
interview with his uncle, whipping himself with a mental switch;
determined to be so strong that his friendship with Estelle might
continue as it was--reasoning out that he had been mad upon the cliffs,
half asleep and dreaming.
He came in to find Esme in one of her restless moods, reading over
letters, peevishly crumpling bills, grumbling at poverty. He did not
know that the memory of a pinched baby face was always before her
eyes--that she feared for the life of the son she had sold.
"Why, Es," he said, and kissed her.
"Don't rumple my hair," she answered; "it's done for dinner."
"Worrying over bills?" he asked gently.
Esme pulled away one letter which he had taken up. "I can pay them,"
she flashed peevishly. "Don't worry." Denise's allowance was due
again--overdue--and Esme did not like to write or telephone, and had
not seen Lady Blakeney for a week.
It was due to her, and overdue to others. Claire's bill ran in for four
pungent pages, and ran to three figures, which did not commence with a
unit. There were jewels, the motor hire. Oh! of what use was five
hundred pounds?
If she had had the boy here she would have gone to the country, been
content for his sake.
"Don't worry." Bertie put his hand on hers. "Es--I've been talking to
Uncle Hugh."
"Well?" She woke up, suddenly hopeful.
"Well, I'm his nephew. He will make me a big allowance, leave me all he
has--if--"
"If what?" cried Esme.
"If we have a son before he dies," said Bertie. "That is the only
stipulation. If not, I remain as I am. He has some craze about another
Hugh Carteret. Of course there will be the title later on."
"If we have a son." Esme stood up and laughed. "A son!" she said, "a
son! I--"
"Why, Esme!" Bertie ran to her. "Oh, don't cry like that. My dear,
don't cry like that."
The wild outburst of a woman in hysterics filled the little room.