Leonetta was home again and the old house in Kensington felt the change
acutely. The stairs creaked in a manner almost indignant; doors which
for months had disported themselves with quiet dignity, manifested a
sudden and youthful tendency to slam; Palmer, the parlour-maid could
never be found, except at the heels of her youngest mistress, who seemed
to have requisitioned her entire services; while a fresh young voice, as
imperious as it was melodious, could be heard on almost every floor at
the same time, calling the stately rooms back to life again, and
shivering the cobwebs of monotony as it were by acoustic principles
alone.
The expression of the kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for
some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually
realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows,
one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile
plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the
feelings of anxiety and disapproval that lie behind it.
Now there was, as we have seen, little of the maiden aunt in Mrs.
Delarayne's disposition, and yet this is precisely the expression which,
from the moment of Leonetta's arrival at King's Cross, had fastened upon
her features. It was the look of one who, though anxious to humour a
youthful relative as far as possible, was nevertheless determined that
the young creature's pranks should not be allowed to extend to
incendiarism, personal assault and battery, homicide, or anything
equally upsetting. It scarcely requires description: the brows are
permanently slightly raised, the eyes are kept steadily upon the
youthful relative in question in mingled astonishment and fear, while
there is the aforesaid agitated smile, which threatens at any moment to
assume the hard and petulant lines of impatient reproach.
Leonetta had quite properly insisted upon a completely new outfit. She
had not "unpacked" in the accepted sense. She had simply emptied her
boxes into the dust-bin. Some of her things, it is true, had fallen to
Palmer, and to Wilmott, her mother's maid, but very few of them, indeed,
had she been willing to return to her wardrobe or her chests of drawers.
No one could take exception to this procedure. It was perfectly right
and proper. It was the way it was done, as if it had been a forgone and
incontrovertible conclusion, that unnerved Mrs. Delarayne, and drove
Cleopatra, more abashed than indignant, to the quietest corner of the
house for peace and solitude.
Obviously Leonetta had as yet received no check from life, no threat of
an obstacle, or worse still a snub. Her pride pranced with an assurance,
a certainty, that was at once baffling and unbaffled. In the presence of
her sister's unbroken and unshaken will and resolute assertion of her
smallest rights, Cleopatra shrank as before the force of an elemental
upheaval. Her tottering self-confidence swayed ominously in the
neighbourhood of the younger girl, and it was with alarm and
helplessness in her eyes, that she sought a refuge where she could
breathe undisturbed.
In the library she dropped desperately into a chair, and her glance ran
nervously up and down the bookshelves, while her ears listened
stealthily for echoes of the voice that was subordinating the house.
She had forgotten during these blissful months how beautiful her sister
was. Some mysterious power in her, that found it easy to forget these
things, had even led her memory to form quite a moderate estimate of
Leonetta's charms in her absence,--even her sister's telling tricks with
her hair had been completely banished from her mind.
Cleopatra rose and walked to the fire-place. On the mantelpiece, she
knew, there was a photograph of herself at Leonetta's age. She felt she
wanted to examine this record of her adolescence. She was groping for
strength: she wished to fortify herself.
She drew the photograph towards her. No, she had not changed so very
much. Only something inside her seemed to have grown less tense, less
self-confident. Also, she had not had Leonetta's advantages,--advantages
that she herself had been chiefly instrumental in securing for her
younger sister. More arts than that of wielding the French tongue are
learned in Paris. Apparently she never had arranged her hair quite as
Baby arranged hers.
And then, all at once, the door opened, and she pushed the photograph
violently from her, so that it fell with a clatter on the marble of the
mantelpiece. It was her mother; and as the door opened and shut, the
sound of Leonetta's voice upstairs swelled and died away again.
"Oh, it's you," Cleopatra cried, setting up the fallen frame.
Mrs. Delarayne walked to the window, spasmodically drew back a curtain,
and then turned to face her daughter.
"She's amazingly high-spirited, isn't she?"
"Extraordinary!" Cleopatra exclaimed.
"Can you go with her to Mlle. Claude's to-morrow to order those frocks?
You see, I have my Inner Light meeting in the afternoon."
"She won't like it."
"What does it matter? She won't listen to my suggestions, so I might
just as well stay at home as go with her. She knows exactly what she
wants down to the last button."
"Then why can't she go alone?"
"Well,--I don't know," replied Mrs. Delarayne anxiously; "she might
perhaps feel that neither of us was taking much interest in her, don't
you think?"
"How much are you allowing her?"
"A hundred pounds."
"Edith!"
"My dear,--I could say nothing!"
"But I never had half that sum all at once."
"I know," sighed her mother wearily. "But you can have it now, or more
if you want it."
There was a loud drumming of feet, and the door opened.
"Oh, Peachy darling!" Leonetta cried, "you're the very person I wanted
to see, and I couldn't think what had become of you."
She was brandishing a paper of the latest Paris fashions in her hand as
she skipped to her mother's side.
"You see," she pursued, "this is what I want for my best evening
turn-out, I couldn't find it a moment ago." And she proceeded to
describe to her mother what the particular confection consisted of.
"Of course they do these things miles better in Paris," she added with a
pout.
"No doubt," said Mrs. Delarayne coldly.
"And they're not a scrap more expensive either," Leonetta continued.
"Possibly not," her mother rejoined. Then there was a moment's silence
while Leonetta ran rapidly through the newspaper in her hands.
At last Mrs. Delarayne spoke.
"Leo, darling," she began, "would you mind very much if Cleo went with
you to-morrow instead of me?"
Leonetta glanced up, scrutinised her mother and sister for a second, and
her brow clouded. "Oh, Peachy," she cried at last, "you are a worm!"
Mrs. Delarayne sat down, and fumbled nervously with a brooch at her
neck. She realised dimly that she ought to protest against being
addressed in this manner by her younger daughter and stared vacantly at
Cleopatra.
"You see," she said, "I have my Inner Light meeting."
"Your inner what?" Leonetta exclaimed contemptuously.
A slight flush crept slowly up the widow's neck, and she looked
hopelessly in the direction of her elder daughter.
Leonetta laughed. "Inner Light!" she cried. "Peachy, you are getting
into funny ways in your old age; now come, aren't you?"
A look of such deep mortification came into Mrs. Delarayne's eyes, that
Cleopatra herself felt provoked.
"There's no need to be rude, Baby!" she ejaculated angrily, not
realising quite how much of her anger was utterly unconnected with her
sister's treatment of their mother.
Leonetta glanced down at her paper in the thoughtful manner of a buck
about to butt. For the first time she had perceived clearly that much
of which she had not the smallest inkling must have happened during her
long absences from home, and that these two women,--her mother and
sister,--were united by strangely powerful bonds. Being an intelligent
creature, therefore, she decided to postpone the framing of her strategy
until she had learned more about the strength that seemed to be
constantly combining against her.
She raised her eyes at last, and looked straight into her sister's face.
"I can't think what makes you so dreadfully stuffy," she declared,
"surely there's no harm in what I said."
Mrs. Delarayne, who longed only for one thing--that the remark
complained about, with its brutal reference to her old age, should not
be repeated, and least of all discussed,--here interposed a word or two.
"No, my darling Leo, of course not. You come fresh from school; you are
full of new ideas and schemes; and we,--well, we've remained at home."
This observation was perhaps a little feeble, and it also constituted a
desertion of Cleopatra, but in any case it seemed to give Leonetta the
necessary hint, for she went quite close to her mother and began
smoothing her hair. "You must tell me all about the Inner Light some
time," she said, "it sounds ripping."
She glanced triumphantly at her sister as she spoke. Half of her action
had been completely unconscious. Obviously she felt the need of making
one of these women her friend, and instinctively she inclined to the one
who appeared to be the more powerful.
"Peachy darling," she continued, "don't you think this white satin frock
that the Claude hag is going to make me might be my coming-out frock? It
will be new for the early autumn."
Cleopatra gasped, and Mrs. Delarayne gave her a glance full of meaning.
"You see," Leonetta pursued, "it will be the best of the lot, won't it?"
Mrs. Delarayne drew Leonetta towards her with an affectionate gesture,
and smiled in that ingratiating manner so necessary to timidity in
distress.
"But I didn't know you were to come out this autumn," she protested
lamely, not daring to look at Cleopatra, whose attitude she only too
shrewdly divined.
"It's ridiculous," Cleopatra exclaimed; "I didn't come out until I was
eighteen. You know, Edith, you and father wouldn't hear of making it a
moment sooner."
"Yes, but things are a little different now," Leonetta interposed.
"It would be unfair, grossly unfair, Edith," Cleopatra protested, "if
you let her come out earlier than I did. Particularly as I did my best
to make you and father let me, and you both absolutely refused."
Leonetta was now gently stroking her mother's hair. She would not trust
her eyes to look at her sister.
"Well, Peachy," she said, "surely you can't make a fuss about six
months, whatever you say, Cleo. After all, I'll be seventeen and a
half."
"Any way," Cleopatra snapped, "it won't be right."
"But what can it matter to you?" the younger girl demanded, glaring not
too amiably at her sister.
Cleopatra's face coloured a little at this question.
"Oh, nothing," she replied, and she moved towards the door. "I don't
care what you do."
"Where are you going to, Cleo dear?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired in a voice
fraught with all the sympathy she could not openly express.
"I'm going out to get a breath of air," replied Cleopatra without
turning her head; and she swept out of the room, performing as she went
those peculiar oscillations of the upper part of her body, which are not
unusually adopted by young women who are very much upon their dignity
when they retire. The oscillations in question consist in curving the
body sideways over small obstacles, such as chairs and tables, at the
moment of passing them, as if with an exaggerated effort to combine the
utmost care with the utmost rapidity of movement.
Mrs. Delarayne rose and went sadly to the window. Her eyes, full of
self-pity, gazed with unwonted indifference at the passers-by. How
thankful she would have been to have Mr. Delarayne at her side at this
critical moment in her life. There were times when she was not
unappreciative of the many advantages of widowhood; but this was not
precisely the moment when the bright side of her peculiar situation
seemed to be conspicuous. With Leonetta home for good, and Cleo still
unmarried, she felt the need of help and advice; and it was significant
that, as she became more and more aware of the practical usefulness that
the late Mr. Delarayne might have had at this juncture, her thoughts
turned rather to Lord Henry than to Sir Joseph Bullion.
She must speak to Lord Henry. He would know how to direct her.
A sound in the room disturbed her meditations. Leonetta, having
concluded a further examination of the Paris fashions, had tossed the
paper on to the table.
"Peachy darling," she began, with slow deliberation. "May I have a
friend to stay with me?"
Mrs. Delarayne continued to gaze into the street. She did not like being
called Peachy. She had an indistinct feeling that it sounded
vulgar,--why she would have been unable to explain. Nevertheless, since
anything was preferable to being called "Mother" at the top of
Leonetta's strident soprano in the public highway, and for some reason
or other Leonetta would not make use of the name "Edith," she felt that
it would perhaps be diplomatic to say nothing.
"Who is she?" she enquired cautiously.
Leonetta was silent for a moment. It was not the question, but the
caution that dictated it, that struck the girl as strange.
"Isn't it enough that she is a friend of mine?" she observed.
"Quite, of course!" Mrs. Delarayne hastened to reply. "I only
meant,--what is her name, who are her people?"
"Vanessa Vollenberg," answered Leonetta.
"It sounds foreign," was the mother's quiet comment.
"As a matter of fact, it is."
"It sounds a little Jewish."
"She is a Jewess," Leonetta admitted.
Mrs. Delarayne purred approvingly over her remarkable display of
insight.
"She's very beautiful and wonderfully clever," Leonetta pursued.
"How old?"
"A year older than I am,--eighteen and a half."
"Jewesses are always pretty at that age," Mrs. Delarayne muttered,
glancing at her daughter furtively for a moment.
"Oh yes, I know," Leonetta replied with unexpected warmth; "and they
fade quickly afterwards. That's what everybody says."
It was clear that for some obscure reasons, she was very much attached
to Vanessa Vollenberg.
"But Mrs. Vollenberg," she continued, "is the most beautiful woman in
the world. She has been painted by every great artist in Europe. So she
can't have faded much."
"How long do you want Vanessa to stay?"
Leonetta suggested that her friend might go to Brineweald with them for
a fortnight; Mrs. Delarayne said that it might be three weeks if she
chose, and the girl bounded towards her mother and embraced her.
"Oh Peachy, my own Peachy,--that is sweet of you," she exclaimed, "you
are forgiven for not coming to the Claude hag to-morrow."
One of the points in Cleopatra's nature that greatly endeared her to her
parent, was that she scarcely ever kissed, and when she did so, it was
delicately, with a respectful consideration for her mother's facial
toilet. Moreover, she never, in any circumstances, disarranged her
mother's hair.
"Are they well off?" Mrs. Delarayne asked, easing a ringlet of hair
tenderly back into its position near her ear.
"If you mean the Vollenbergs," Leonetta answered, "they're as rich as
you and Sir Joseph knocked into one."
Her mother protested.
"Oh, very well. He owns a whole quarter of Hull, and has a West Indian
Copra business into the bargain."
Leonetta did not know what "copra" was, but she thought it sounded
sufficiently like a precious metal to suggest immense wealth.
Later in the evening, Mrs. Delarayne and Cleopatra were alone in the
former's bedroom.
"I have a feeling," Cleopatra was saying, "that I don't love Denis
sufficiently to go mad about him. You know what I mean: he may be the
best specimen of manhood who has ever crossed this threshold, but he
does not electrify me."
"That's very sound," her mother rejoined with unusual emphasis. "There's
no need to be electrified by the man one marries."
"Yes, but I feel that one ought,--I mean that seeing that I could,--you
know,--if one is going to be something to a man, one feels that one
would like to be electrified by him."
Mrs. Delarayne deposited her voluminous transformation lovingly upon the
dressing-table,--Cleo was such an intimate friend!
"Rubbish!" she ejaculated. "Romantic rubbish! How often have I told you
girls that provided a man can keep you in comfort and has a clean sweet
mouth, it doesn't matter a rap about anything else. Even if he has dirty
hands and finger-nails in addition, it doesn't signify;--there's the
English Channel and the Atlantic close by to wash them in. But if he
hasn't a clean, sweet mouth, a second deluge wouldn't wash it for him.
How can you attach so much importance to trifles, when in Denis you have
the two first prerequisites in an eminent degree? You are romantic, my
dear Cleo. And matrimony is a matter of flesh and blood. When the
demands of these are properly attended to, I assure you the rest is mere
foolishness. Denis can keep you in comfort, and he has the teeth of an
African negro. What more can you want? You cannot go on losing chance
after chance through these romantic notions."
"But surely," Cleo objected hopelessly, "a man ought to fire you with
something more exciting than the consideration of his means and his
dentition!"
"In our class," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined with gravity, "men no longer set
fire to anything. Get that out of your mind at once. Modern English
civilisation has entirely failed to produce men who can be at once
gentlemen and fiery lovers. We have wanted things both ways, and that is
why we have failed. We have wanted nice clean-minded men with whom we
could walk, talk, and play games freely. But that means men who can
exercise self-control. Now, of course, we are certainly free to enjoy
men as safe playmates all through our youth; but we are, I'm afraid,
also free to be bored with them as husbands for the rest of our lives."