WHITE POPPIES OF OBLIVION.
Levallion, left alone on the wet grass, had never made one step after
her.
Alone, in the night and the rain, he had fought down that dreadful
passion, that loathing that had made him forget everything but the
desire to be rid of a venomous thing. He fought down, too, a harder
thing; the shame that comes after the breaking out of a devil’s temper,
whose leash has given way under strain; and at last could turn and go
into his house, join his party, as if nothing had happened.
“Well! Did you discover any one?” Lord Chayter inquired covertly.
Levallion looked at him.
“There was no one there,” he said calmly, not knowing that to have told
the truth would have been to put a bar in the way his young wife must
travel. He could not tell Chayter what was none of his business, and
might work round through the women to Ravenel.
His eyes passed his friend and found his wife.
“By ----!” said the man’s mind heavily. “If ever I saw innocence, there
it sits. What do I care if she was engaged to Adrian twenty times over,
she did not marry me to be Lady Levallion! She married me because she
was wretched, and if I would have listened to her, she would have told
me the whole story. Ask Sylvia!” he smiled as he alone could smile when
his heart ached. “I would as soon ask the devil for holy water! And
if Tommy did not punch my head for impertinence if I asked him--gad!
I’d kick him. I’m not in my dotage that I believe the statements of an
angry, hysterical woman.”
But, in spite of himself, Levallion saw every action of Ravenel’s
through a magnifying-glass all the next day. It rained, and there was
no shooting to speak of; the men were at home by luncheon-time, and up
to that Lady Levallion had been with them, chaperoning Mrs. Damerel,
sick and against her will, since to kill birds for pleasure was to her
a crime. And all that afternoon she never spoke to Adrian Gordon, nor
he to her. They might have been utter strangers with a preconceived
dislike to one another. But Adrian looked like a haunted man, who
deliberately turns his eyes from the sight he dare not see.
“Levallion,” said a charming voice in his ear at tea-time, “I have an
idea!”
It was Mrs. Damerel, who had for years cherished a platonic--and
unreturned--affection for her handsome, sharp-tongued host.
Levallion repressed the obvious retort.
“Tell it,” he drawled; “I never have any!”
“Let us have a fancy ball to-night--oh! I know there are only twenty of
us, but it’s enough. The men can wear evening dress,” shrewdly, “but
the women must all dress in their favorite flower, and wear masks.
We’re nearly all the same height, and it would be so amusing. Fancy,”
with a delighted laugh, “if you were to take me for your wife!”
“You never gave me a chance! You refused to poison Damerel,” calmly.
“Every woman her favorite flower--delicious! But what a revelation of
character! What’s yours? The flower of silence?”
“Then we may?” cried Mrs. Damerel, and hoped she blushed, though it
would have taken sharper eyes than Levallion’s to see it. “I’ll tell
Lady Levallion. My flower, indeed! We will all be quite secret, and
you can guess when you see us,” abandoning her choice of the rose of
silence for the more exciting mistletoe of kisses. “Oh, Levallion!
don’t you think the duchess would be lovely as a cauliflower?” in a
wicked whisper. “She is so like one.”
“I’ll inquire,” said Levallion briskly, and he did, with Mrs. Damerel’s
compliments, perfectly aware the duchess detested her.
Ravenel jumped at the proposal, since it would be better than nothing,
would pass the time of which she yet grudged every hopeless, useless
minute since they only brought the day nearer when Adrian would
be gone. She looked at the tea-gowned women around her with some
interest, though before they had been to her little more than moving
shadows who yet must be entertained and amused.
There were only seven, counting herself and the Duchess of Avonmere,
for Levallion had no opinion of people who asked ten ordinary husbands
and wives to their houses and expected it to be a cheerful gathering.
Thirteen men, of whom only two were husbands, kept things stirring. It
was no business of Levallion’s where the three uninvited husbands had
betaken themselves.
“I believe,” she said to herself, “that I know what flower each one of
those women will choose!” and she laughed as she sent an order to the
greenhouse that every one was to have exactly what their maids asked
for.
The thought of her own favorite flower took the color from her cheek.
Oh, the white may that had filled the whole world that day that she
and Adrian parted--forever--without knowing it. Never again would Lady
Levallion smell may of her own free will. She looked up almost guiltily
as Levallion spoke to her under cover of getting Mrs. Damerel’s second
cup of tea.
“You look tired; slip away and rest,” he advised, with a look of
coldness that was not like him--to her. “And be wise in time, Ravenel;
don’t wear real flowers to-night, unless you want to resemble the
sweepings of Covent Garden!”
Lady Levallion nodded.
“It was that shooting; it made me feel sick,” hastily; and if he did
not believe her, seeing Adrian’s face and hers, he liked her courage.
If she had come to him and cried and confided, he would have despised
her, even while he dried her tears. To ease your own soul by piling
your indiscretions or sorrows on some one else was against Levallion’s
creed.
“I have no favorite flower,” she said, with a laugh, having crushed
down the ghosts of flowers she loved and hated, “and--listen,
Levallion, bend your head down, and--neither have any of them! They’re
racking their brains now to discover what their adorers prefer.”
Levallion laughed. He had not thought she knew so much, all his dear
friends being truly but mirrors of the pose of the moment, on the
tastes of the “man in possession.” And her laugh lightened his heart,
and made him remember that Hester Murray was, and always had been, a
liar.
“Mind you look better than the lot,” he remarked cheerfully, and
without much anxiety, for not a woman in the room could come near her
for looks.
“My favorite flower will depend on what Celeste has in her boxes,” she
thought, as she went up-stairs. Ordinary evening dress was to be worn
at dinner, as usual; but before the men came to the picture-gallery,
where they were to dance, the ladies could have time to change and put
on their masks, which Mrs. Damerel’s maid was making out of black silk,
exactly alike, with black hoods to match and cover the hair, which
might betray the wearers.
Celeste, with a face of despair, had nothing.
“There are pink roses, but they would be so ordinary, my lady,” she
said, rooting wildly in her stores. “Nothing else, unless----” She
opened a cardboard box doubtfully, and gazed at its contents. “They are
not gay flowers!” she commented.
“They will do, perfectly,” said Ravenel, after one second. “They are
very--appropriate. Sew them on firmly, Celeste, and make me a little
wreath that will go under my hood.”
An old tag of poetry had leaped into her memory as she looked at the
white mass in the box, but she had no tremors lest any one else should
remember and apply it.
She looked at herself narrowly in the glass when, after dinner which,
by the way, was anything but good, Levallion having had a fresh battle
with Carrousel on the subject of the disappearance of the first orchids
of the season--she achieved her toilet, and, with thankfulness, hid
herself in her thick, black mask. For behind it she could let her mouth
take what shape it liked, and, thank God! for one night need not be
always smiling.
Levallion was late. He stood at one end of the long picture-gallery,
whence he had coolly banished all his ancestors as being too hideous to
contemplate, and looked between the walls covered with modern French
pictures to the far end of the room.
There were the guests in a group--and for a moment he was honestly
puzzled, for the women were all of a height, as Mrs. Damerel had said.
Then he laughed, for he saw the duchess. And the duchess had taken Mrs.
Damerel’s words to heart and bedecked herself with real and veritable
cauliflowers--but with what a genius!
On the white velvet gown were bestowed wreaths and bunches of the white
part of her homely vegetable, which were almost as velvety as the gown
itself.
She disdained either mask or hood, and her curled, gray head rose over
her ornaments with the air of a woman who may be fifty, but has slain a
spiteful foe with her own weapon, and knows it.
“The blue one with forget-me-nots is Lady Chayter.” Levallion looked
again at the group. “Artificial! Artificial! I don’t believe she ever
picked a real one in her life.
“Yellow and Maréchal Niel roses--Mrs. Arbuthnot. That sweet vision of
chiffon and lilies is Betty Beauchamp! Betty--who has a new young man
every month in the year!” and he grinned.
It was more amusing than such nonsense usually turned out. But from
Lady Gwendolin Brook, in dull-orange and evil orchids, he turned his
head in disgust, commenting dryly, that she was too modern for future
parties of his.
“I always stood up for her, too, which is awkward. But I never
understood what she really was, till I saw those devilish brown-spotted
orchids,” and his eyes found Mrs. Damerel and laughed. Shy and modest
violets covered Mrs. Damerel’s lilac satin, mistletoe having been
unprocurable. Mrs. Damerel--who shot, and hunted, and smoked, and
usually put her conversation into plain terms! She might put six masks
on her face when she forgot not to stick out her self-asserting elbows.
And then he looked no more, for his glance had fallen on a woman in
white, standing alone at a little distance from the others.
It was Ravenel in a plain, ivory satin gown, covered with great trails
of white poppies with purplish-black hearts, and dull-green velvet
leaves.
Over a mass of the pallid flowers of sleep and death her face and head
were tragic in the black shroudings that he had somehow never thought
looked sinister on the other women.
And not her mask alone sent a chill to Levallion’s heart. Her eyes,
black and anxious in their narrow eyeholes, were fixed on Adrian
Gordon, who for once stood beside her, was whispering in her ear.
And as he spoke her somber eyes flashed with a sudden brightness, a joy
they had never had for Levallion.
“White poppies!” even at his own expense, Levallion was cynical.
“Well, I suppose I may be glad she does not wear the roses of rapture
and silence.” And he cursed with some thoroughness himself for his
suspicious thoughts and Hester Murray for her lying tales, even the
innocent white poppies, because they meant “oblivion”--the oblivion of
a woman who says to herself every morning that she has forgotten. As he
walked over to the duchess to congratulate her on her masterpiece of
decoration, he felt exceedingly cross and out of sorts. But, being Lord
Levallion, determined to keep his eyes and ears utterly away from his
wife throughout the evening. Every girl has a school-day love-affair;
let her bury hers to-night under her white poppies! To spite himself
and prove Hester was wrong, he had half a mind to ask Adrian to stay on
indefinitely, but even Levallion knew he could not do that.
“My dear Levallion,” said the duchess, as the music--obtained by a
miracle of money and a special train!--struck up, “pray don’t wriggle!
You’re not sitting on a pin, are you?”
“It’s Damerel,” returned his lordship affectedly. “Don’t look at the
egregious fool! He’ll make you ill.”
The duchess glanced at Mr. Damerel, who had turned his dress clothes
into a walking funeral with tuberoses, even unto the seams of his
trousers.
“He’s very funny!” she said doubtfully.
“He ought to be put into a hearse,” snapped Levallion. “I wish I’d
never read any poetry! I should not be able to remember so many
quotations about the idiocy of man,” but the particular verse in his
mind did not apply to Mr. Damerel’s trousers, and he never glanced at
his wife as she passed him, though her white train brushed his feet.
Slowly the words were putting themselves together in his mind, and he
knew more than Ravenel did:
“Now, those are poppies in her locks,
White poppies she must wear;
Must wear a mask to hide her face
And the want graven there.”
Ravenel had gone no further; Levallion’s vilely accurate memory
supplied two lines more:
“Or--is the hunger, fed at length,
Cast off the care?”
And at the memory of the quick and sudden glory of Ravenel’s glance at
Adrian, the man could not but wince. He looked up and saw her standing
beside him.
“Aren’t you going to dance with me?” she said. “You can pretend you
didn’t know it was I, you know!”
Pretend, indeed, when he would know her in her grave-clothes with a
cloth over her face! He rose a little stiffly, and put his arms around
her waist. He danced well for all his forty-seven years, and he knew
it; the two floated smoothly down the long gallery to the tune of “Bid
Me Good-by and Go,” and Adrian Gordon, who had never danced with the
girl he loved, had to step back as she passed him in Levallion’s arms.
“Oh,” said Ravenel, who had not seen him, “you’re holding me too tight!
And you’re out of breath, Levallion.”
“I am forty-seven,” he returned, rather grimly, stopping by the lower
door. “Now run off and amuse yourself. I must go and condole with Mrs.
Damerel. Did you know she wanted me to send seven miles after dark for
a bunch of mistletoe? In October!” and he deliberately, and of a set
purpose, never turned his eyes toward his wife during the remainder
of the evening, and, when “kitchen lanciers” rent the air, retired,
without ostentation, to the library.
It was dark, and he turned on the electric light irritably.
“What did you do that for?” said the cross voice of Sir Thomas. “Oh, I
beg your pardon, Levallion! I didn’t know it was you.” He rose from his
knees at the window.
“Why are you praying instead of dancing?” inquired Levallion, casting
himself into a chair.
“I was watching some one, Levallion. I wish you’d put out the light
and come here! I’m sure there’s some one trying to get into the
conservatory.”
The light went out as he spoke. Sir Thomas was much mistaken if
Levallion did not swear; certainly he groaned inwardly.
At first he saw nothing as he strained his eyes into the darkness,
and then, against the soft, rose-colored glow of the conservatory,
between him and it, he was conscious of a woman’s figure. Somehow that
restless, black shape touched Levallion’s nerves.
“Stay here; don’t say anything to any one,” he said, very low, as if
the woman could hear him. “It must be one of the servants, but I’ll
just find out!”
Whatever deviltry Hester had in mind should not be done. He would,
from a safe screen of orange-trees, that would keep him from view of
the people inside or out of the greenhouse, watch his chance, and
make her understand that, though his lawyer had that day received his
orders, a telegram to-morrow could revoke them. The woman was capable
of anything--as he had good cause to know--and suppose she frightened
Ravenel! Levallion was not long in getting to his covert. But, though
he stared through the leaves till his eyes ached, he saw no more of
that prowling wolf outside; he was just going away, when two people sat
down on a secluded seat not a yard away from him and effectually cut
off his retreat. For as he hesitated for one second, he heard his own
name, in Ravenel’s voice.
“I tell you Levallion had nothing to do with it,” she was saying
angrily. “If I thought he had, I’d want to kill him--or I’d go with
you.”
“What did you want to ask me?” Adrian Gordon made no direct answer.
“Two things, though they don’t matter to me now,” wearily. “I wanted
to know why you said you were too poor to marry me when you were
Levallion’s heir--though I didn’t know it.”
Levallion stood paralyzed. Hester, then, had not lied--for a wonder! He
felt as if something hurt him unbearably, but he did not even try to
escape it. He wondered dully what Gordon would say.
“I can’t tell you, except that I,” lamely, “always thought he would
marry.”
Levallion, white with relief, leaned against his orange-tub. Though,
of course, he had known Adrian would never tell his wife the thing she
asked.
“Can’t you see,” said Ravenel fiercely, “that it’s the only weak point
in the whole thing. I know about the letters. I know about the ring;
but this hurts me because----”
“Because it looks like a lie.” Perhaps Levallion was no more sick at
heart than Adrian. “Well, it is quite true! I never counted on being
Levallion’s heir,” though if she had not been Levallion’s wife he might
have given a different answer.
“I believe you--don’t be angry! I feel as if all the world were a lie
since--since Sylvia,” her voice, that began passionately, broke off in
dragging despair, “separated you and me.”
“What was the other thing?” said Adrian slowly. “Nel, for God’s sake,
take off that black hood and let me see your face! I am going away
to-morrow,” with quiet and jealous pain. “Why have you got on white
poppies? The real ones always smell to me like laudanum--and death!”
“I’ve got them on because they mean oblivion,” she answered bravely.
“I’ve got to live my life, Adrian. I made it for myself--and Levallion
has been good to me. The only way I can go on with it is to forget.”
“What about me?” very low.
“You can fight it out as well as I can,” bitterly. “I can’t get rid of
Levallion even to please you.”
“I don’t want you to. Two wrongs,” hardly, “don’t make a right.”
In the silence Levallion felt curiously and impersonally sorry for
them; mad as it seems, liked Adrian better than he ever had before.
“Ask me the other question,” Adrian said quietly, “and then you must go
on. I don’t want you to be missed, and found with me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” not knowing that one day every soul in the
house-party would remember just how many minutes she had been absent
with Adrian Gordon. “Oh, the question! I only wanted to know--though
your concerns are none of my business since Lady Annesley sent you away
from me--who the woman was who came down with you that first day and
asked for you that night at the door.”
“Asked for me?” in utter surprise that Levallion felt was real. “Came
down with me? Nel, be sensible; don’t imagine rubbish! You know
perfectly that what I thought you had done to me had made me loathe all
women. I don’t think I’ve spoken to one since. Lady Annesley sent me
back your ring. No woman could come and inquire for me.”
“One did,” obstinately.
“Then I don’t know who,” and Levallion was glad he did not. “Nel, you
distrusted me once with good reason for a great thing; don’t fuss over
rubbish now.”
Levallion heard a rustle of silk. Had Ravenel moved? But her voice came
from exactly the same place.
“I’ve got to go on till I die,” she said in a carrying whisper. “Go
away to-morrow, Adrian, or I can’t bear it. The only thing you can do
for me is never to see me again.”
“I know; don’t say it, will you?” roughly. “In old times I’d have
quietly poisoned Sylvia and killed Levallion, but now I can only go
away.”
“Don’t speak like that about Levallion; he’s more to be pitied than
either of us. If he died to-morrow----”
“If he died, would you marry me?” Gordon interrupted sharply.
“I’d cry myself sick. I wouldn’t look at you.” The loyal, grateful
voice fell till a listener farther away than Levallion could not have
heard it.
“It’s time for me to go,” thought Levallion; her loyalty, that was
not love, hurt him unbearably. “Let her say good-by to him, and
then--we’ll see! If I were not her husband I could make her love me
best in a week!”
Deftly, inch by inch, he made his way past their unconscious backs,
doing his best not to hear any more. He was a dishonorable eavesdropper
already, but he did not care. He would not have any one else hear,
though, and that rustling of silks had been unpleasantly close.
Whoever it had been was gone now. Levallion hurried to the library to
tell Tommy they had seen a kitchen-maid watching the quality; hurried
to the picture-gallery to see who was missing besides Ravenel!
“Gad, I wish it had been any one else!” he thought wretchedly. For the
only woman absent was Lady Gwendolen Brook, of the orange gown and the
evil orchids. And that she entered at that moment did not reassure him,
for with her was Scarsdale, and Jimmy Scarsdale believed in the honor
of neither man nor woman, and always said so--with examples.
“Levallion, have you seen Ravenel?” cried the duchess. “We’re waiting
for her to go to supper.”
The two latest arrivals exchanged glances.
“Then don’t wait,” returned Levallion lazily, with his best manner.
“She’s with Adrian in the conservatory. I don’t wonder you’re hungry,
I am quite a wreck. I interfered with my cook’s amours, and he quite
cowed me with his dinner to-night. Come, if you wish me to live till
morning,” and the duchess never knew that he was inwardly cursing
himself, fate, and two, if not three, of his guests, as he took her
down-stairs.
“She’s had time enough,” Lady Gwendolen and Scarsdale were close behind
him, “to say everything by now. She hasn’t been up here for an hour. I
wonder----”
Scarsdale hushed her by a look at Levallion’s back.
It was a gorgeous joke on Levallion, but not good enough to quarrel
for. Besides, Lady Levallion was meeting them as they reached the
dining-room.
Somehow every one stared at her as she let them pass her at the door.
She had taken off her mask and hood like the others, and, under her
crown of poppies, her face was white, exhausted, beaten, the face of a
woman who has said good-by to love and youth.
Lord Levallion helped the duchess to game pie, and finished the
quotation that had worried him all the evening:
“Lo, these be poppies--not for you,
Cut down and spread.”
He put his untasted supper of plain almond soup, which was all he
ever took at night, on the first floor for Mr. Jacobs, who licked the
plate scrupulously clean, and immediately after was as thoroughly and
scrupulously sick. Sir Thomas hastily removed him as a footman removed
the remains, and, being a conscientious master, dosed him till he was
sick again, for there was froth about his mouth, and Sir Thomas feared
fits.
It was not a pretty incident, but luckily only Levallion and Tommy
beheld it--unless the outraged cook peering through the pantry door saw
the insulting treatment Levallion gave his soup. No one else thought
anything about it.