BRIDGET AT GRANDISON SQUARE
Carrissima walked back to Grandison Square, feeling not a whit less
jealous than she had set out. There seemed, it is true, something
about Bridget Rosser to which she was scarcely accustomed in her own
personal friends; something difficult to describe. It might be due to
an innate ingenuousness, or, in part, to the quasi-Bohemian life she
had probably lived during the last few years abroad.
There seemed to be an absence of reticence; a kind of natural freedom
which assuredly had a charm of its own, although some persons might not
approve of it--Lawrence, for one!
He came to Grandison Square the same evening, entering the drawing-room
still wearing his heavy overcoat.
"A bitter wind has sprung up," he said, standing close to the fire.
"What a pity you took the trouble to turn out in it," suggested
Carrissima, always rather inclined to resent his superintendence.
"What have you been doing all day?" he asked. "You haven't given
Phoebe a look in."
"I went to Golfney Place this afternoon," was the answer.
"Golfney Place----"
"To renew my acquaintance with Bridget," said Carrissima.
"Quite unnecessary!" retorted Lawrence.
"Far better if you had stayed away."
"Why?" demanded Carrissima.
"Phoebe suggested going," said Lawrence; "but I wouldn't allow it for a
moment."
"It's certain," cried Carrissima, "that she is a standing example of
the way not to treat a husband. How ridiculous to form a prejudice
against any one you have never even seen."
"If she had been the sort of woman I should like my wife to call upon,"
said Lawrence, "she wouldn't have allowed Mark to see her so often. A
woman who lives alone! Why on earth couldn't you leave her to stew in
her own juice? I don't wish to see my brother-in-law make an idiot of
himself."
"Anyhow," returned Carrissima, "it can't have been Mark's account that
set you against her."
"Oh, of course," exclaimed Lawrence, "Mark would swallow anything."
"It is his business in life," said Carrissima, with a laugh, "to make
other people swallow things, isn't it, Lawrence?"
He went away dissatisfied, and the following Monday afternoon Bridget
Rosser paid her first visit to Number 13, Grandison Square. Although
her movements were even and unhurried, her appearance in her
out-of-door garments was conspicuous. The brim of her hat struck
Carrissima as being a shade wider than that of any one else, her dress
closer about the ankles, while yet she wore it without a trace of
anything that could be called vulgarity.
"I should have come even earlier," she said, taking Carrissima's hand;
"but I only got back from Sandbay this morning. I have been staying
since Saturday with my aunts; the dearest little Dresden china aunts in
the world. They are my mother's sisters and they give me no peace.
You see, they are terribly Early Victorian. You were saying that your
brother insisted that no woman under forty is capable of looking after
herself. Well, Aunt Jane and Aunt Frances think honestly that I am
going to perdition as fast as I can."
"I suppose," suggested Carrissima, "they would like you to live with
them?"
"Oh dear! they are quite mad about it. You know everybody is mad about
something! They write every week, but I positively couldn't endure it.
Of course my father did his best to put me off, although I believe his
chief objection was that they had a hatred of tobacco."
"Still," said Carrissima, "I don't suppose you are a confirmed smoker
and they might be good for you. I don't think I am Early Victorian,
but still----"
"Oh, I know!" cried Bridget; "but fancy wasting any little sweetness
one may possess on the desert air of Sandbay. I should simply go
mad--stark, staring mad. Carrissima," she continued, "I suppose you
know heaps and heaps of people. So did I when my father was
alive--people who do things, whose names you read in the papers, who
think for themselves and make others follow their lead. Oh, I long to
be in the movement!"
Rising slowly from her chair, and with perfect coolness, she took a
framed cabinet photograph from a table between the windows.
"Is this Colonel Faversham?" she asked. "I remember him now quite
distinctly."
The portrait showed a man of middle height, rather taller than
Lawrence, with much broader shoulders. His face had an almost
dissipated expression, and he wore a large, pointed moustache. His
hair was still plentiful, although it had been grey when Bridget last
saw him; his eyes were somewhat prominent, and he held himself
unusually erect.
"How old is your father?" asked Bridget.
"Sixty-five," was the answer.
"He doesn't look so old!"
"Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to hear you say that!"
cried Carrissima. "But the photograph was taken some years ago."
"Have you only one brother?" asked Bridget.
"Only one living. I had another brother and a sister. They came
between me and Lawrence, and died a long time ago."
"I love looking at photographs," said Bridget, putting that of Colonel
Faversham back in its place. "I hope you don't mind--whose is this?"
she inquired, taking up another frame.
"Oh, that is Jimmy!" cried Carrissima.
"Why do you laugh?" said Bridget.
"I really don't quite know. There's nothing very comical in his
appearance, is there? Only somehow one does laugh about him."
"I think," said Bridget, "he is one of the pleasantest-looking men I
have ever seen."
"Yes, Jimmy has a nice face," returned Carrissima.
"Of course," Bridget continued, with her eyes still on the photograph,
"it isn't so distinctly handsome as Mark's."
"Perhaps not," was the answer; "I thought you had seen him while we
were at Crowborough. Mr. Clynesworth. Although his name is Rupert
everybody has called him Jimmy since his school days."
"I remember Miss Clynesworth," suggested Bridget.
"His sister--or, rather, his half-sister. She might be his mother by
the way she tries to look after him."
"Does he require a lot of looking after?" asked Bridget.
"Oh, I don't know," said Carrissima. "He is one of those men who
somehow give you the impression they could do wonderful things, and if
they would. He is immensely rich and nice-looking, as you say, and
people do their best to spoil him. I won't insist that they have
succeeded. Anyhow, he is immensely good to Sybil. Her father was a
physician, and she lost her mother when she was a small child. When
she was about ten Doctor Clynesworth married again. His second wife
was very wealthy, and, to judge by her portrait at Upper Grosvenor
Street, she must have been a beautiful woman. All her money went to
her only son--Jimmy, but Doctor Clynesworth had very little to leave to
Sybil. Jimmy insisted that she should continue to live at the house in
which her father had practised, and he is immensely fond of her
although they are about as different as any two persons can possibly
be. Should you," asked Carrissima, "like me to ask her to come and see
you?"
"Do you think she would?" said Bridget, returning the photograph to the
table.
"I am certain she would be delighted, especially if I explain that you
have no one to chaperon you," replied Carrissima, whereupon Bridget
smiled as if she were quite convinced of her ability to take care of
herself. On saying "Good-bye" Carrissima made a point of urging her to
come to Grandison Square as often as she felt inclined, and from that
time forth she regarded Miss Rosser with curiously mingled sensations.
While it proved difficult to refrain from liking the girl, with her
frank joyousness, her youthful zest in life, the possession of such
qualities furnished an additional excuse for that jealousy which still
dominated Carrissima's waking thoughts. Without forming any definite
design, the idea certainly occurred to her that Mark might come to
occupy a smaller space in Bridget's sphere of things, if only she knew
a few more of his kind.
The following afternoon Carrissima, according to her promise, went to
Upper Grosvenor Street, where lived Sybil Clynesworth and, when he
pleased, Jimmy. He had, however, a country house at Atlinghurst, and
when he stayed in London sometimes preferred a room at one of his
clubs, to that which his sister always kept in readiness.
On reaching the house Carrissima was disappointed to hear that Sybil
had gone away the previous morning.
"When do you expect her back?" asked Carrissima.
"I have no idea," said the butler; "but Mr. Clynesworth might know."
"Mr. Clynesworth is in London then?" cried Carrissima, and in fact, he
came out of the dining-room on the left of the hall the next moment.
The Favershams, the Drivers and the Clynesworths were old friends.
They had known each other from their earliest years, and the three boys
had gone to the same preparatory school at Brighton. Sybil,
considerably the oldest of the group, tried still to hope that Jimmy
would marry Carrissima, although for that matter, she would have
rejoiced to see him the husband of any woman whom she could love.
Jimmy Clynesworth was about thirty years of age; a little younger than
Lawrence Faversham, a little older than Mark Driver. In height he was
between them, a little above the average; not a tall man, certainly not
short, well built, but not noticeably broad-shouldered, and wearing
this afternoon a rough, darkish tweed suit, fitting him rather loosely.
In fact, you could not imagine Jimmy tightly buttoned up or putting on
an uncomfortably high collar, or doing anything solely for the sake of
appearances.
He had a somewhat round face, with straight dark hair and an almost
downy-looking moustache, which barely hid his lips, although it was not
brushed upwards in the mode of the moment. His eyes were rather far
apart and he was characterized by an appearance of perfect health and
equability of temperament.
"Hullo, Carrissima!" he exclaimed, coming forward to the door with his
hand outstretched, "what a stroke of luck!"
"I wanted to see Sybil," she explained.
"She has gone to the Ramsbottoms," said Jimmy. "Old Lady Ramsbottom
was taken ill. She sent for Sybil yesterday, as people do when they're
seedy, you know. Won't you come in?" he added.
"No, thank you, Jimmy. I mustn't stay," returned Carrissima.
"Now, that's sheer conventionality," he insisted. "You would really
like to come in and have a talk, but for the melancholy reason that I'm
alone, you're afraid."
"Oh, wise young judge!" said Carrissima.
"Well, if you're obstinate I'll walk back with you," he suggested,
taking a bowler hat from the stand, while the butler handed his gloves
and cane. "I've nothing in the world to do," he added, as they walked
away from the house.
"You never have, Jimmy!"
"No, I'm the most dreadful waster," he admitted. "I've just been
reading a penny pamphlet--by one of the labour members, and upon my
word, it made me squirm like one o'clock. Did you want to see Sybil
about anything of cosmic importance?" Jimmy asked.
"Oh dear, no," said Carrissima, as they crossed the park. "Only to ask
her to call on a girl she met when we were staying at Crowborough some
years ago."
"What's she like--pretty, by any chance?"
"Very pretty," answered Carrissima.
"Then I'm your man. I can go instead if you give me the address, and
there's no time like the present."
"Jimmy, you must try not to be ridiculous," said Carrissima. "For some
reason you can't have seen her during the few days you stayed with us."
"What is her name?"
"Bridget Rosser. Her father was a novelist----"
"Oh!" cried Jimmy, "you mean David Rosser. I remember that the colonel
introduced me; besides, I happened to run up against him again a few
months later. A man who never got his due. David Rosser had a style,
you know: a little precious, perhaps, if that's a drawback. So you
know his daughter! I will see that Sybil goes to see Miss Rosser.
Then," said Jimmy, "I shall have a look in."