Brigit left the villa the next morning and went straight to London. And
the nearer she got to the old town which contained, for her, the very
kernel of life, her spirits mounted and mounted in spite of herself. She
had for so long been "down among the dead men," as Tommy called
depression, that her sudden change of mood affected her strangely.
"If I must never see him again," she repeated over and over again aloud
to herself, in the solitude of her compartment, "I shall at least see
him once, and--hear him speak. I'll make him play to me, too; and I
shall see his big unseeing eyes, and his wonderful hands!" The very
wheels of the train seemed to be saying, "I'll see him, I'll see him,
I'll see him," and when she landed at Dover, in a pouring rain, she
could have laughed aloud for sheer joy.
Her mother was living in town, in the tiny house in Pont Street, but had
gone to the country for the week-end, so the girl, to her great delight,
was alone with the servants.
Putting on a dressing-gown she sat down by her fire and closed her eyes.
"Three months, a fortnight, and six days," she thought. "It seems years.
I wonder what he will say to me? Will he be glad to see me? And--how am
I to do? Shall I tell Théo, and make him tell? Or shall I be brave--as
Pam would--and tell him myself!"
Then, realising her absurdity in forgetting that after all it was more
Théo's affair than his father's, she laughed aloud.
It was easy to laugh, for whatever happened she would see Victor
Joyselle that evening, and beyond that she could not, would not, look.
The world might end to-morrow, and it mattered nothing to her. That
night he and she would be face to face.
She shuddered, for he would call her his daughter and kiss her forehead.
Then the smile came back to her lips, and she rose. It didn't matter;
nothing mattered but the great, primary fact that in--how many
hours?--four, she would see him. Let his mood be what it
would--fatherly, aloof, impish--he would be himself, she would see him,
and she loved him.
The Duchess of Wight had written to her, and going to her dressing-table
she re-read the note.
It was short, simply telling her that her mother had told of her
arrival, and asking her to dine at 8.30 in Charles Street. Not she, she
would not lose one second of the glorious anticipations that were hers
now. She would sit here close to her fire and gloat over her joy.
Sitting down, she took a sheet of paper and began to write----
"Dear Duchess,--Thanks so much for asking me to dine, but----"
She broke off and sat staring at the wall. To-morrow at this time what
would have become of her? The world would have run its course, come to
its end, and yet she would be still alive! Could she bear it?
She would have told her story; made these people understand that she
could never be one of them; broken (for the time) Théo's young heart,
and been reviled and cast out by Joyselle.
And she would have to return here, alone, broken with grief, hopeless.
Drearily she looked round the room. It would all be the same; nothing
would change; the very roses on her dressing-table would still be fresh
and sweet, and--she?
Raising her head, she met her own eyes in a glass, and started. Her own
beauty amazed her. "If he could see me now," she said aloud, "he
couldn't call me '_petite fille_.' He doesn't know I _am_ a woman; he
has seen me--as if through spectacles. If I had never known Théo, and
then met him somewhere by chance----"
She recalled his frank, wondering amazement as she raised her veil that
evening in the train.
"He sees me always with Théo's shadow between us. It is--unfair--and----"
She took a fresh sheet of paper and began her letter again:
"Dear Duchess.--Thanks so much for asking me to dine to-night.
I shall be delighted to come.
Yours sincerely. "Brigit Mead."
Then she rang for the housemaid, who would in the absence of her half
of Amélie have to help her dress, and gave her certain directions.
To-morrow might bring what it would. That one evening was hers, and she
would use it. Joyselle should see her with his own eyes, as a man sees a
woman, not as a father sees a daughter. And he should see her as a man
sees a marvellously beautiful woman!
Satisfied with the conclusion to which she had come, she lay down and
slept for an hour, after which, the enigmatic smile on her lips bringing
into predominance the resemblance to the portrait in the Luxembourg, she
dressed, with more care than she had ever devoted to that process in all
her five-and-twenty years of life.
When she arrived at Charles Street and had shaken hands with the
Duchess, who had had influenza and looked very old, the first person she
saw was Gerald Carron.
"Will you speak to me, Brigit?" he said diffidently, "please do."
He, too, looked ill, and moistened his lips nervously as he spoke. She
shook hands with him without answering, and he hurried on, "Haven't I
been good? I knew where you were, and--I might easily have come----"
"You would not have had a flattering reception," she suggested drily.
"Or written. And I did neither. I was glad you went, though God knows----"
"How do you do, Mrs. Talboys," she cut him short ruthlessly, "when are
we to have another book?"
It was a very large dinner, and Brigit, placed between two men who dined
out for reasons dietetic and economic, and did not talk, was free to
pursue her own thoughts at leisure. She had wired Théo before leaving
the de Lenskys', that she was leaving for home, and before starting for
the dinner she had sent another wire, addressed simply "Joyselle," to
say that she was dining out, but would come to Golden Square after
dinner.
She knew that Joyselle, recognising her prompt appearance as an answer
to his letter, would be at home late in the evening, no matter where he
might have dined. "He has such strong family feelings," she reflected,
with a menacing curve of her upper lip.
So deeply was she buried in her thoughts that she was amazed to find
suddenly that the Duchess was trying to gather her flock's eye,
preparatory to herding it upstairs. Both her hungry neighbours made
spasmodic attempts to eradicate from her mind the memory of their
fanatical devotion to the rites of the table, and she smiled absently at
them, wondering what they would have thought if she had politely thanked
them for their silence!
"My dear," said the Duchess, a few minutes later, sitting down in her
favourite corner by the fire, "come and tell me about Pam."
"She is well, Duchess."
"Didn't she send me any messages?"
"She did. Much love and some kodaks of the children. Your god-child is
a love."
"H'm. And how is the horrid little adopted one?"
"Poor Pammy!"
"Now _will_ you look at Lady Agnes Blundell spilling coffee all over my
carpet. She did the same thing the other night at the Beaufoys'! I
really believe the woman drinks, or something. What were you saying, my
dear? Oh, how is your young man?"
Brigit did not smile. To-morrow was coming.
"I--I haven't seen any young men since I got back, Duchess."
"Oh, well, you tell him from me that his father is a wretch. Is there a
wife? I think someone said there was--well, she probably doesn't know
all _I_ know." The old woman pulled down her mouth in comic disapproval.
"What--is it?" queried Brigit.
"Oh, nothing, only--a very beautiful foreign actress, a lady famous for
her--plastic beauties. Voisin, my hairdresser--you know Voisin?
Delightful person, and the most indiscreet man in London--tells me they
dined together every evening at a little French place near Leicester
Square, where _he_ dines. And it appears your future papa-in-law was
furiously _épris_, or still is--possibly! You will have to keep him in
order. What is it, Bishop?"
The butler, whose name, the Duchess had been known to declare, explained
why no Anglican or other prelate ever dined or lunched with her--"It is
so confusing, my dear; suppose I should say 'Bishop, see if Mrs.
Snooks' carriage has come'"--came quietly up to the sofa. "Her
ladyship's carriage, your Grace."
Brigit rose. "Yes, I fear I must run away. Thanks so much for having
me----"
And when the men came in she had gone.
When she reached Golden Square she found the house in a blaze of light,
and smiled. It was like Joyselle to celebrate her return by illuminating
his every window; it would have been like him to put up a triumphal
arch; to have a big supper awaiting her; these things belonged to the
side of his nature that clamoured for expression in white satin ties.
For a moment she sat still in the motor, while the footman held the door
open.
"Come back at half-past eleven, Jarvis," she told the man, and got out.
The door was opened by Toinon, somewhat to Brigit's surprise--for it
would have been more like Joyselle to rush downstairs on hearing her
motor stop, but the reason was soon plainly comprehensible, for Joyselle
was playing. It was evidently earlier than they had expected her.
Slipping off her cloak and with a finger to her lips, she went quietly
upstairs and stood leaning against the side of the door.
It was wild music that she heard; music that made the blood in her
temples and throat pulse harder than ever. Breathing deep, she waited
for the climax, and when it came, quietly opened the door.
She had chosen her moment well, and as the door faced a long mirror
between the windows she saw, as she stood on the threshold, not only
Joyselle, who, alone in the room, stood staring in amazement, but also
that at which he stared--herself. Clad in a dress made apparently
entirely of flexible dull gold scales, the long lines of her figure
unbroken by any belt or trimming, the woman in the glass stood smiling
like a witch of old, a deep colour in her cheeks, the palms of her hands
held down by her side, the fingers outspread and slightly lifted as if
in water. Quite silently she stood and smiled until the man before her
dropped his violin--for the first time, she knew instinctively, in his
life.
Then she spoke, saying his name, the name by which the world knew him:
"_Joyselle._"
"_Mon Dieu!_" he returned softly. Coming slowly forward he caught her
hand with clumsy haste and kissed it. Her heart stopped its mad beating,
for she had won. Here was no Beau-papa. Here was the man, Victor
Joyselle.