Mrs Stanson, writing letters to engage a variety of nursemaids—she considered a person of her position must be thoroughly waited on—was surprised by a visit from Esmé.
The baby was splendid after all his trials and his journey. Mrs Stanson did not hold with infants travelling; she dreaded the cold journey back to England.
"Nor do I hold with the heat of these here rooms," said the English nurse, "and with the cold a-rushing in like a mad dog with its mouth open if one stirs a window. Give me air for a child, Mrs Carteret, air and warmth; but above all, air."
An autocrat of the nursery, this Mrs Stanson, who had nursed heirs of great houses and loved her charges. A death now, the passing of pretty delicate Lady de Powers and her infant son, had set the woman free.
"You'll love him, Mrs Stanson—be good to him?" Esmé flung out the words in sudden impulse; she took the smiling baby up.
"I declare, Mrs Carteret, he might be yours instead of her ladyship's," laughed the nurse. "She came in for five minutes, and asked if I wanted anything, and to order what I wanted. I made it two nursery-maids to-day. Like many young mothers, she's careless. It's the ladies without that would give their eyes for one," said Mrs Stanson, softly.
"Without." A slur on her, Esmé, whose child was in her arms. Something hurt in her throat; she turned red and then white. She sat for an hour in the big bright room, listening to all the ills which lurk in wait for infant life, related with gusto by the nurse. A little chill, a spoon of soured food, and poof! out goes the life; then later, chicken-pox, measles, whooping-cough; wet feet. It seemed wonderful to think that there were any children left alive. Little Cyril, dribbling thoughtfully, had no idea of what was before him.
But at the end, comfort. "And yet they lives," said Mrs Stanson, "lives on, on beer and dripping, which I am informed is used as baby food by the very poor."
Denise came in for tea, fresh, radiant, wrapped in a great stole of fox. Big Sir Cyril pulling little boxes innumerable from his pockets.
They had a sitting-room. Denise called Esmé in to her, spread purchases on the table.
"See, Esmé—this pendant, isn't it sweet? And this enamel clasp—and this brooch—and that diamond heart." The table glittered with the things. "Oh, Cyril could not buy enough for me. He is so good."
Almost sullenly Esmé looked down at the stone of green, white and red; the pendant and necklace was the one which she had coveted. Denise might offer to give her some of these; she might ask her if there was nothing she wanted.
"And I got you something, Es—just as remembrance. Cyril wished me to. Summers! bring in the parcels. Yes, there it is."
Esmé knew the label—that of a huge shop close to the Place de l'Opera; good, but bourgeois, cheap.
"See! I hate that musquash thing you wear. It's too dark for you." Denise pulled out a stole of brown fox—a huge thing, covered with tails, but meretricious, showy; the satin of the lining crackled as she touched it. This for all she had done for her friend.
"Thank you, Denise." Esmé took up the fur. "How pretty. It was nice of you to think of me, now that I am of no further use."
Denise looked up, startled by momentary fear. Surely Esmé was more than content with her share of the bargain. Was glad to be rid of her unwanted brat; to have ample allowance and be free. For a minute she saw what it might be if Esmé failed her.
But Denise was shallowly optimistic; she laughed the fears away; she kissed Esmé affectionately.
"It was a great thought, and it's splendidly over," she whispered—"over for us both."
"And you? You really begin to feel that he is yours?" whispered Esmé back, almost fiercely.
"I believe I do. I shall have forgotten it completely in ten years' time," laughed Lady Blakeney.
"And—shall I?" said Esmé to herself.
"Some people," said Mousie Cavendish, "appear to have come into a fortune."
She touched Esmé Carteret's sable coat, stroking the soft fur, her small greenish eyes looking up wickedly.
"Friends ... are nice things," said Mousie, softly. "Hey, my pretty Esmé."
Esmé flushed. Five minutes before she had grumbled at her poverty, now she came down in her splendid wrap waiting for the motor.
Money had never seemed to go so fast. The half-year's allowance from Denise had been spent in a day. More new frocks, new habits had seemed necessary. A restlessness haunted Esmé; she was not satisfied with anything, she was nervous, lacked appetite, had grown thin.
She was doing the last of the hunting season at Coombe Regis now, an old Elizabethan house taken by the Holbrooks.
Their only difficulty, as Mousie said sweetly, is "that they cannot remake the bricks with gold dust, it's so ordinary to have one's house made of clay and straw and water, otherwise bricks."
There were horses in the stables, sleek, shining hunters, belonging to friends who came to stay. Esmé hired from a local stable. She rode hard and straight, but came in tired after her day; her old perfect health had deserted her.
"There," said Mousie, looking out onto the chill March day, "is Luke, our host, seeking for something he may spend money on. He wants to be a peer next birthday, and his hopes are high."
The flowers in the old-fashioned flower-garden were a blaze of magnificence. Mr Holbrook was looking at them, greatly interested in one patch of pure white daffodils because he had paid ten pounds a piece for the bulbs. The Cabinet minister who was coming to stay was a florist. A gift of some of these might please him greatly.
The Holbrooks had made Coombe Regis into a passable imitation of a Hotel de Luxe. The old hall was now a palm court, heated by hot air, its great open fireplace offended by a new grate which held coals; the drawing-room was magnificent in dull blue and gold; stiffly hideous, with great mirrors shining everywhere.
The dining-room was a mass of mechanical devices, of lifts and electric heaters and telephones to everywhere, the small tables were all polished wood spread with slips of real lace. One dined scratchily off luke-warm silver, one's breakfast cup was Crown Derby set in filigree.
"So annoying of the hens not to learn to lay golden eggs," remarked Mrs Cavendish one morning when she had examined half a dozen things smoking over the electric heaters. "What's the use of this pure gold Orpington here sitting on a silver nest when she only hatches things which can be purchased at a penny and twopence each. No, I refuse to eat truffles and cream and salmon for breakfast, nor do I require ham and champagne sauce."
A big party had assembled for the ball of Regis Hunt races. Dull people and smart people, who ate their meals together with regret, and drifted apart directly afterwards. The dull people ate the ornamented dishes and sighed inwardly for roast mutton, the smart people picked at them and wanted the French cookery their greedy souls adored.
But Mr Holbrook was content. He was getting on. He did kind things which he concealed rigorously, and he did generous things for his own benefit, and his peerage loomed ahead.
"My dear love," said Holbrook, coming into the library. He had furnished the shelves with first editions of various authors whom no one ever read. Statues stood, coldly graceful in corners, gleaming white against the brown background. The library table carried a writing set of leather worked in gold. Grace Holbrook was dictating letters to her secretary, a slim girl with a pink nose and an irritated expression.
"My dear," said Holbrook. "Do you think—?" He paused.
"You can go, Miss Harris," said Mrs Holbrook.
"Do you think," he said—"hum, Critennery has a little weakness ... she dances at the Magnificent, in some gauze ... that we could have her down. Lady Ermyntrude is not coming."
"We couldn't," said Mrs Holbrook, hastily. "The Duchess is coming."
"Well, it's quite his little weakness and he can do as he likes," said Holbrook, mournfully. "I do want Henry to be Lord Regis, my love. It's just to dance on Saturday. I would arrange with Hewson of the Magnificent. And dancers are so fashionable."
"My dear Luke, the Duchess of Dullshire will be here," said his wife, firmly, "and the Trents, and Lord Frensham. We couldn't. The Duchess was at the Magnificent, I remember seeing it mentioned—she must have seen the woman without any ... that is dancing."
"She is so very graceful," said Luke. "Well, my love, of course if we cannot. But artistes do go everywhere now. She lunches with Lady Ermyntrude, and I thought that her presence, combined with a present of those Angel bulb roots; but if you object ... well, it's quite a little weakness, my love. Critennery would have liked to talk to Mavis Moover."
Mrs Holbrook wavered visibly. "If the Duchess had not been in front," she said; "still, she's very blind and won't wear glasses; she may not have noticed the gauze. I don't want our party to be spoilt, Luke, but—"
"Think it over, my love," said Holbrook, going out. "Think it over. And there's Jimmie Gore Helmsley coming. I see his name down. I don't like him, Gracie. He's a bad 'un, my love."
"He goes everywhere. He's running a horse," said Mrs Holbrook. "That long-legged bay thing we saw galloping to-day. People say it will win. He goes everywhere, Luke."
"So much the worse," said Mr Holbrook, "for everywhere."
Something had happened to the motor Esmé was going out in—a tyre had punctured as it was starting and the chauffeur gave warning of an hour's delay. Esmé yawned, waiting in the over-heated hall.
Bertie would be home in a week; she would want more wine at cost price from her host. Seeing him come out she flashed a friendly smile at him. She asked him to send her some.
But Luke Holbrook, who had been glad to help a pretty girl in a tiny flat, saw no reason for losing a profit to a woman in magnificent sables.
"Want more hock?" he said. "The same as last, eh? Yes, I told you to ask me—but it's gone up—gone up, and whisky too, and port.... I'll send it on to you. Kind of me. It's my business, pretty lady, my business. No bother at all."
Esmé did not realize that he meant to charge her full price.
"We've had such a hunt, we came back early." Sybil Chauntsey ran into the hall in her habit, young Knox close behind her. Mrs Holbrook approved of love. She had asked them together. "Oh, such a run," babbled Sybil. "And my chestnut was glorious, the dear."
"Jimmie always said that the chestnut was his best horse." Mousie Cavendish's thin lips curved in a spiteful smile.
Young Knox started, looked at Sybil.
"I thought it was your own horse," he said gravely.
"Captain Gore Helmsley lent him to me for the season. I call him mine. I thought that you knew."
"No, I did not." The young soldier seemed to have forgotten his gallop; he looked tired and put out.
"The car, madam, is ready." A butler who bore the mark of experience stamped upon his impassive face came forward. Esmé fastened her coat, asked for a companion—Mrs Cavendish would come. Her spiteful tongue made light strokes at reputations as the car hummed along. No one escaped. No one was immune. She had come to drive to find out who had given Esmé the coat, for the fair girl had never made herself auspicious.
"Met heaps of nice things abroad, I s'pose.... Why didn't you order a limousine, Esmé? I hate the wind in these open things ... heaps of princes, I suppose, and rich potentates, didn't you, in your travels?"
"Heaps," said Esmé. "At least we must have seen them sometimes."
"Funniest thing rushing off like that for all these months, so unlike Denise Blakeney. It didn't agree with you, Esmé; it made you thin, and different somehow."
"The climate," Esmé said, flushing a little.
"And fancy Denise not coming home for the event, trusting herself to foreign doctors and nurses."
"She did not intend to stay," Esmé answered. "She meant to be back."
"I saw the son and heir. A great fat thing, fair like Cyril. Well, it settles all the difficulties then. Denise doesn't play therôleof devoted mother; she says the baby bores her."
A sudden wave of anger shook Esmé—fear for her child—it might be neglected, grow up unloved. Then they stopped at the toy shop at Regis.
"A parcel for Mrs Holbrook," she said to the man. Obsequious assistants ran out to the Coombe Regis motors.
A hunting man, still in his splashed pink, stopped them. He, too, was full of the great run.
"Coming out to-morrow to Welcombe," he said. "We're all training down."
Esmé's face clouded.
"I can't afford it. I owe the man twenty pounds. I've done two days this week."
A year ago Esmé would have almost expected a horse offered to her. Major Jackson had fifteen of them; she had only to look appealing then, talked of poverty, and horses came as from the clouds.
Now he too looked at her coat. Its owner could not want help.
"Other engagements," he chaffed lightly. "You're losing your keenness, Mrs Carteret. Fact."
Esmé turned away ill-humouredly. They drove back to Coombe Regis, the open car humming through the cool spring afternoon. Mousie Cavendish questioning, surmising, as they went.
The palm court was crowded now, partitions had been knocked away, a room thrown in to make it large enough; there was no gathering round for tea. Trays were placed on the little glass-topped satinwood tables. Hot biscuits and scones were kept hot on electric heaters. The butler laid a species of buffet covered with huge iced cakes, and relays of sandwiches if the supplies on each tray were not sufficient.
"Only one thing required—cold roast beef and plum pudding," Mousie said ill-naturedly, as she looked at it. The tea-pots were all silver gilt, the little piles of cakes and sandwiches rested on real lace. In the drawing-room Mrs Holbrook gathered her dullest guests at a table, where she poured out tea herself, away from the more clouded atmosphere of the hall.
Several expensive toy dogs sat about on the blue and gold brocade and ate scraps of cake merely to oblige the guests.
They dined off minced chicken and fillet of beef, and breakfasted off cream and grape nuts. Mr Holbrook liked them because he had paid three hundred for Li Chi the pug, and two for Holboin Santoi the pomeranian.
"Luke," said Mrs Holbrook, taking her second cup of chilly tea. "Luke, I think we could do it; the Duchess may never know who she is."
"Do you really, my love?" said Holbrook, briskly. "Then I'll write to her manager and to her, enclosing a note from you. She will go so well with the bulbs—Critennery must be pleased."
Esmé had found a pile of letters waiting for her, long envelopes containing accounts rendered. She did not know where her money had gone to. Nothing seemed paid for.
She was going to her room, walking on carpets so thick that her feet sank into them, with all the silence of riches round her, doors which opened and shut noiselessly, deadened footsteps, when she stopped startled.
"Ah, Madame!" Marie, her late maid, smiled at her. "Ah, Madame." Marie was enchanted. She had regretted so that Madame had been obliged to part with her.
"I am with Milady Goold, Madame, and I see Madame has not been well; she is looking delicate, then."
"It was Italy." Esmé was nervous before the Frenchwoman, whose brown eyes looked at her with a curious shrewdness.
"Madame had much travelling with Milady Blakeney? I have been to Reggio, Madame; I have a cousin there."
Esmé turned swiftly to her door to hide her white cheeks. She recovered in a moment. Even if Marie did write or go there, there was nothing to find out. "Yes—it's a dull place, Marie," she said. "And when you're out of a place come back to me. Watson cannot do hair, Marie."
Marie went away smiling—a curious little smile. "There was something curious in all that," she said softly. "Something, but yes, strange—and one day I, Marie, will find it out."
The races were to be on Tuesday. Saturday saw Coombe Regis with every room full. The Cabinet minister felt himself over-honoured in one of the huge state rooms, where the old carved bedstead had been left, and all the electric lights did not seem to dispel the shadows.
"Kind of thing queens died in," said the minister as he took a long walk from his bed to the dressing-table.
The Duchess occupied another vast chamber, made incongruously modern by a low bedstead representing a lily, and bought for a fabulous sum from France. "Absurd," said Her Grace, as she poked into the down pillows and lace-edged sheets arrayed among the inlaid petals. "Also it can't have proper springs."
Her Grace of Dullshire was a large lady of philanthropic tendencies. She kept a herd of prize cows which she sold to her friends for large sums, and prize hens, and she knew a horse when she saw one, so had come for the races. She also liked bridge, when she won. The Duchess was a leader of society, one fully aware of the fact. Her deep voice had power to slide an ambitious clamberer back over the edge of the cliff which she had scaled with difficulty. To be asked to Dullengla Court, where one dined off beef soup, boiled cod, roast mutton, cabbage or turnips, and rice moulds, was to be marked as with an order. The Duke never visited, and the Marquis of Boredom, their son, had so far not been allowed to marry. He had, greatly against his will, been included in this house-party, it being an unfortunate fact that his taste was for attractive ladies on the stage. "I would allow you to marry Lady Sukey Ploddy," said his mother when they got to the door of Coombe Regis; "she will be here." The palm court was brilliant to-night. Shaded lights glowed through the artificial leaves, showing chiffons and satins, laces and silks, and the black-and-white dinner armour of mankind. Rare jewels flashed, faint scents made the air fragrant.
The Cabinet minister, coming down just before dinner, stood on the Duchess's toe in his surprise at catching sight of a dark moving face and a supple, slight form.
"Mavis," said the minister, blankly.... "Oh, so sorry, Duchess. I hope it didn't hurt. Did Homburg last year, y'know. Now if it had been before that...."
The Duchess's hop to a chair shook the palm court. Her only son, coming down in almost painfully well-made clothes, was confiding his woes to a friend. "Absolutely rotten bein' caught for it. Scarcely a girl to speak to, and if there is she'll be off with some Johnny she knew before. Nothin' but Ploddys and that spiteful Cavendish, and oh, hang, rot all round, y'know. Yes, mamma."
"Who?" said the Duchess, "who, Francis, is that nice-looking girl in black?"
"Gracious!" said Lord Boredom. "Lord! it isn't," he paused ... "her name is Moover, mother," he said blandly—"Moover."
"American," summed up the Duchess, accepting her host's arm. Mrs Holbrook sorted the vast party every evening and paired them off for dinner.
Lord Boredom received Lady Sukey Ploddy's substantial hand upon his coat sleeve, and intelligently remarked, "Eh oh, Imagin," when she told him she was looking forward to the races.
The minister took in his hostess, and found the dancer at their table for four. "I like this," said Miss Moover contentedly, taking caviare. "Nice of 'em to ask me, wasn't it? Old Luke—"
"That's your hostess," said the minister, hurriedly. The magnificence of dinner descended upon them and the food. One reached for fish beneath a truffle-spangled vest of sauce; one poked at a snowy tower and found that upon the menu it was harmless chicken in disguise. If the cook did not earn her salary by spending money on elaboration she would be speedily replaced.
Gay voices, light laughter, rang up to the vaulted roof. Armies of powdered footmen moved deftly among the tables. The celebrated Holbrook wines were poured out lavishly.
One finished with bad coffee and took choice of a dozen liqueurs, the blue haze of smoke floating around the heated air. Huge golden boxes, initialled and becrested, stood on the tables, filled with cigars and cigarettes; the butler, faintly proud of so much wasted money, stood for a moment before he left. Red bars gleamed along the shining mahogany from the rich ruby of the port.
The dull people drifted away with their hostess to the drawing-room to read and work and gossip, but the Duchess lingered in the palm court waiting for her son.
"A very nice-looking girl," said Her Grace. "Miss Moover, I think I have seen you somewhere."
"Perhaps," said Mavis, civilly. "Perhaps, Duchess."
Lord Boredom, who had quite woke up, sniggered softly; for the rest of the evening the Cabinet minister, who was a philosopher, realized the power of youth over mere prestige as he watched the Marquis of Boredom devote himself to a demure-looking girl in black, with the manifest approval of his mother.
A gentle feeler to Miss Moover, whose real name was Harris, had resulted in a frank avowal from that young lady that at present her income was several hundreds a week. "And all my own," said Mavis, a little sadly, for she had come to London to work for a mother who had died before her daughter grew famous.
There were a dozen little dramas played out under the high roof—comedy, tragedy, drama, to each its caste, its players and its audience.
Young Oliver Knox's bright face had lost its gaiety. He was a mere everyday soldier, awkward of speech because he loved deeply and pitted against Gore Helmsley, who woke to the game because there was a new chance of losing it. With his black eyes full of the admiration he knew how to throw into them, his words laden with subtle compliment, he followed pretty Sybil, slipped her away from her fretting lover, took her to play bridge, and praised her mistakes as flashes of genius.
The girl was flustered as she found herself playing against Mrs Cavendish and Dolly Frensham, two gamblers of repute. She saw the scores added and settled, heard Jimmie say carelessly that she could settle with him next day, and scarcely knew what she had lost. Esmé flashed careless answer to Gore Helmsley's cool greeting; he had done with her, and yet his coolness hurt. Comedy was played in the palm court, played next day after breakfast, with Miss Mavis Moover as its heroine. The Duchess was quite charmed with her, accepting certain little frivolities as merely transatlantic. Mavis displayed a worthy interest in cows, and was not averse to philanthropy. "You'd be happy in a simple country place," said the Duchess, referring to the vast house with at least ten sitting-rooms, in three of which they camped out.
"I think so," said Mavis, quietly. "I guess so, if I liked the people."
"My love," said Luke Holbrook on Monday morning. "It hasn't quite worked, my love. I fear our hope in the Cabinet has not had the time we intended him to. I fear that nosey boy of the Duchess's has put his foot in the pie," said Luke, sadly.
"Luke!" said his wife.
"Fallen into the dish. All the same, my love. Critennery is leaving to-day."
"He can travel by the same train as his fancy," said Mrs Holbrook, placidly.
The great man, urbanely gracious, came to make his adieux. Holbrook looked at him apologetically. "You will travel up then with Miss Moover," said Mrs Holbrook, brightly; "she leaves this morning."
The Cabinet minister drew on his grey gloves carefully, then adjusted the fingers slowly.
"Lord Boredom," he said, "is motoring Miss Moover to Town just in time for her performance. Good-bye again. So many thanks for a charming visit." He turned to his host with a smile. "Come to me directly you come up," he said. "If you want that baronetcy."
"In the outside lot again," said Holbrook, lugubriously. "But he's a good sort, he may understand, my love."
The races played their part. Gore Helmsley, a splendid rider, won easily, cantering in five lengths in front, his long figure looking its best on horseback, his dark face glowed when he rode. Young Knox's horse fell; the boy came in muddy, shaken, sad in mind, because it was a jostle with his rival which had knocked him down.
Sybil gathered some gold gaily. Jimmy had put a tenner on for her. With a girl's folly she feasted her eyes on tinsel, turning away from the duller mint of hall-marked gold. Here the curtains might fall on a tragedy, fall hurriedly, for the chief actress would have to smile and call it comedy to her audience if she was ever to appear again on Society's stage.
Sybil came laughing to one of the smaller sitting-rooms that evening, a room warm, softly lighted, one ordered as one chose at Coombe Regis. She was having tea then with Gore Helmsley.
"No one will look for us here," he had said as he rang the bell. "Let's have a quiet half-hour. Talk to me, little pal, I'm tired."
Over the indifferent tea, poured out of a gilt teapot, Sybil smiled gaily, held out her day's winnings—twenty pounds.
"See, I owe you money for bridge, for two nights. Take it. I hope there's enough to pay. I did play stupidly."
Jimmie pushed back the pile of gold. "My dear, you lost eighty pounds. What does it matter—that can stand over. I paid the Cavendish for you; she's a cat and would talk."
Sybil cried out, frightened and astonished. Eighty pounds! and besides that she had played in a lady's four and lost another ten. Her mother was not rich; she could not pay easily.
"Keep your pennies," he mocked in lordly tones. "Some day you'll pay me. I am glad to help a little pal." Jimmie meant the payment to be a high one, with interest. He was a merciless human hawk, poising long, swift to strike at the last. "We played sixpennies, you see."
"I never dreamt," Sybil faltered; "I thought it was pennies here."
When you owe a man eighty pounds, when he has paid rather than have you cornered, it would be churlish to spring aside, a prude, if he kisses you softly before you part. If he pulls you to the arm of his chair and keeps you there, holding two small chill hands, it is surely all in good friendship.
Sybil went away with some of the careless youth wiped from her fresh face, with trouble and perplexity in her frank eyes; the big dark man fascinated her, knew how to make her feel a little queen, how to bring the hot blood to her cheeks, but to-night she was half afraid. His little pal! She'd cured his headache—been a brick to stay with him. Instead of playing bridge to-night they'd play piquet in a quiet corner, he whispered.
"You didn't come to tea." Oliver Knox came straight to Sybil in the hall, his face ill-humoured. "I was watching for you."
"No, I was tired," she said, blushing a little.
"And Gore Helmsley did not come—our black Adonis, Miss Chauntsey—can't you see through the man?"
A foolish speech uttered by foolishly, honestly loving youth. Sybil tossed her head angrily and walked away offended.
"Coming to play to-night?" Mousie Cavendish asked her.
Sybil's lips drooped.
"I don't think so. I've lost such a lot. You play too high for me."
"Pooh! What matter. Jimmie doesn't mind. He's full of money now after the race."
"I've lost such a lot," Sybil repeated, forgetting that she was angry with Oliver Knox, turning to him in her trouble, missing the meaning in the woman's words.
"You ought not to play with that crowd. Mrs Cavendish is the best player in London—the quickest to read a face, I'll bet. It's madness, folly."
Another foolish speech. Sybil went off to change. This drama was being played quickly. The girl was stirred, flattered; awakened nature made her a lute too easily played on by a practised hand. She shrank from decision, from promising to marry a soldier of slender fortune, and she knew that decision was near. That night, after dinner, her young lover followed her, took her, almost against her will, away from the others to the library, with its rows of richly-bound volumes, its sombre magnificence.
"Sybil"—the boy's face was white. He was too moved for eloquence. "Sybil, you know I love you. I can't stand by and see that other fellow follow you, as he has followed others. Making you—you remarkable. Sybil, I'm not rich, but I love you, marry me—I'll make you happy."
And—she was not sure—for a moment she felt his arms close round her and dreamt of peace and sheltered love, then again she was not sure, she said so faltering. Give her time ... she muttered.
"Sybil, I can't wait. It's life or death to me. Give the fellow up. Give him back his horse. I'll hire you one. Go, tell him now. It maddens me to see you ride the brute."
Give back the horse, and to-morrow she was to ride the perfect chestnut at the meet. Next day they were going back to London, they were dining with Jimmie, motoring with him. "I'll tell you"—Sybil faltered—"later—I don't know."
An anxious lover is always a fool. He would have no delay, he must know. It was a choice—a challenge to fate. If she took him it must be altogether. She was too young to understand. Sybil was tortured by indecision. How, owing eighty pounds, could she go to her friend and say, I will not ride your horse—I will not dine with you. How could she hurt him?
"Sybil, I thought you cared," a hoarse voice roused her.
"I believe I do. Oh, Oliver, give me time."
"No!" he was going away, leaving next morning. "I cannot share you, Sybil. Oh, friendship. Don't prate of that to me, but, if you want me, send for me. If I can ever help, write or wire. I'll go on loving you as long as I'm alive. As you don't care enough I can go."
He flung out bruised and hurt.
Was it chance or design which had made Jimmie Gore Helmsley talk that day of the worries of a soldier's life.
"Kicked about, never enough money, poky houses, a rattling two-seater, or a dogcart, a dog's life for a pretty woman," Jimmie had said lightly. "Stuck in some wretched country town or in some big station where the dust reeks of the army. I've pitied so many girls who have married soldiers. Think of your beauty now thrown away." And all the time as young Knox pleaded Sybil had recalled these words.
Esmé went back to London next day, back to her little flat.
A bleak wind swept along the streets, dark clouds raced across the sky. It was dreary, intensely cold, the flat was poky, its cosiness seemed to have deserted it, it had become a tawdry box. The furniture looked shabby, worn, the tenants had been careless. Esmé stood discontentedly pulling at her cushions, petulantly moving back china to old places. Her servants were new, inclined to be lazy. The cook looked blankly unenthusiastic as to lunch.
"Couldn't possibly have all that in time to-day, mem. They'd send round something from Harrod's, no doubt."
Esmé lunched ill-humouredly off galantine and tinned peas. She thought of the big houses she had been in; they must move, take a little house. This place was out of the way, inconvenient. She ordered flowers recklessly, telephoned to Denise inviting herself to dinner.
The butler answered. "Yes, her ladyship would be dining in, he would ask." There was a long pause, then an answer. "Her ladyship would be pleased to see Mrs Carteret at eight."
"She might have spoken herself," said Esmé, angrily.
The afternoon dragged wearily. Esmé drove to one of the big shops, ordering new cushions, new coverings, but languidly; she meant to leave the flat and took no real interest in it.
She went early to the Blakeneys. Denise was not dressed. No message came asking her to go to her friend's room. Esmé had to learn that an obligation creates constraint, as the person we owe money to, however generously given, is never a welcome guest.
But Esmé left the pretty drawing-room. Its spaciousness made her envious, she stepped past Denise's room to the upper landings. Here Mrs Stanson was just coming to her supper. A little lightly-breathing thing lay asleep in his cot.
"But, nurse, he's pale, isn't he, thin?" Esmé whispered.
"He caught a cold, Mrs Carteret. Oh, nothing. I feared croup, but it passed. It's a trying month, you see, for tiny children."
Lightly, so softly that the baby never stirred, Esmé stooped to kiss him, stood looking down at the child which ought to have been sleeping in the spare room at the flat.
But he would have been a nuisance there, an inconvenience, she told herself insistently.
Then fear tore at her heart. What if the child should die. "Be good to him," she whispered, slipping a sovereign into Mrs Stanson's hand. "Be good to him, Mrs Stanson."
She got down before Denise did. Felt the want of warmth in her hostess's greeting. Denise was splendidly gowned, gay, merry, looking younger, happier. Sir Cyril's eyes followed his wife, contentment visible in their look.
"My dear Esmé, delighted, ofcourse. When you are alone always come here. We've only a four for bridge—Susie and her husband. You can cut in."
"I'll look on." Esmé felt that she was not wanted, she was odd man out. She flushed unhappily.
Denise was full of plans, each one including Cyril now. She talked lightly of that boy Jerry. She was completely the happy wife, confident in her position.
"And the boy. He's had a cold," Esmé said.
"A cold has he? I think I heard him sniff?"
"Yes, he's had a cold," Sir Cyril said. "He was quite feverish. Denise is not a nursery bird, I fear."
"And you've been dining off gold plate at the Holbrooks, Esmé. I wouldn't go. Cyril and I went for a few last days with the Quorn. Cyril bought me such a lovely mare, all quality. Ah, here is Sue." Lady Susan Almorni was not a friend of Esmé's. Denise seemed to be leaving her smart friends, to be settling among the duller, greater people.
"Bertie will be home to-morrow. I want to leave the flat, to come more west. It's poky, horribly stuffy. If—we could afford to." Esmé crumbled her toast, looked almost sullenly at Denise.
"But could you? And it's such a dear little flat. Could you afford it, Esmé dear? You are so comfy there."
The butler brought in the evening papers. Before they settled to play bridge Sir Cyril opened them.
"Why, Mrs Carteret," he said, "this is awful about your cousins surely. The two Carteret boys have both been killed in a motor accident. It makes Bertie heir, I suppose, but what a tragedy."
Esmé caught at the paper and read it feverishly. "To the title," she said. "It's entailed. Hugh Carteret can leave his money as he chooses—unless we have children." But she knew what a difference it must make.
"You'll have to follow my example and have an heir now," laughed Denise. "To make it all certain. Eh, Esmé?"
Esmé sat with the paper in her hands and did not answer.
Spring rioting, chill and bleak, crushing the coming summer in its impish hands. A day when cold came creeping under doors, sat even by the fire and would not be denied.
Looking into her draped glass Esmé was struck by new lines in her face, by a loss of her dazzling youth, by a tired look in her eyes. Discontent, weariness, were writing their names on her skin.
Bertie would be home early. She had been lazy and not gone to the ship to meet him. He was coming to breakfast, the fires were smouldering in the sitting-room, the new housemaid reasonably desirous of "gaus." Esmé, in her prettiest wrapper, shivered and grew irritable. She had ordered an elaborate breakfast, but the new cook was a failure; the fish was sodden, the bacon half raw, the hot bread mere heated bakers' scones.
Esmé recalled the breakfasts at Coombe Regis, at Harlands. She flung out at the maids. Ordered new dishes angrily. Oh, it was hateful not to have things right. Her old gaiety had left her. She would have laughed a year ago and boiled eggs on a spirit lamp. Bertie at last, running up, catching her in his arms, holding her close.
"Esmé, my dear old butterfly. My sweetheart. Oh, it's good to be back again here with you. Breakfast, Es, I'm starving."
So big and boyish and loving. She clung to him and found discontent even there. She had cheated her man. There was a secret to be hidden from him for ever. And where were all the comforts she had dreamt of with her income? Where were they?
"Breakfast." Esmé rang the bell.
"Cook is grilling the bacon, mem. It will take ten minutes." So Bertie had to wait, and then eat cold eggs and burnt bacon, and drink stewed tea. But he was happy.
"Extravagance," he said. "My silken-winged butterfly, that's a new gown of fluff and laces."
"You don't expect me to have all last year's, do you?" Esmé almost snapped, then leant against him. He held her closely, loving the warm suppleness of her body, the scent of her burnished hair, his lips were hot on the satin smoothness of her skin.
"But, Es sweetheart, you're thinner," he whispered, "and looking sadly. We'll have a week away, just you and I, in Paris. You must be rich now with no house all this winter."
Esmé slipped away from him and fidgeted as she lighted a cigarette.
"Oh, Bertie, you've seen about the accident. You're heir now."
"The place is entailed," he said. "It's worth nothing. But the old man's money is his own. He may leave it to me. If we had a boy he might, no doubt he would."
Esmé flushed scarlet, turning away. The cold day grew colder. Try as she would, the old happy intimacy, their careless happy youth, would not come back. Before, she had told Bertie everything. Now if he knew, if he knew.
Her husband seemed to have grown older, graver, to be less boyish. He talked of one or two things as extravagant. They discussed Aldershot and he spoke of lodgings. Houses were impossible there.
Esmé grew petulant. Lodgings, she had seen them. Chops for dinner and cold meat and salad for lunch. They must find a house. They'd heaps of money.
They went out to luncheon, telephoned a table at the Berkeley, ordered their favourite dishes recklessly. Esmé came down in the Paris coat, open to show the blue and silver lining.
"Butterfly! What a coat," her husband exclaimed at its beauty. "Where did you get it?"
Esmé hesitated, told half the truth.
"Denise gave it to me," she said slowly. "You see I did a lot for her."
Bertie was his old self then, foolishly merry. They must go up Bond Street and order a limousine to go with the coat. It couldn't sit in taxis. When it was off in the restaurant he saw the cunning beauty of a Paris frock, a black one, the old pendant of emeralds gleaming against real lace.
It was too cold, too bitter to walk about. They rang up friends, played bridge. Esmé ordered dinner at the flat, asked Dolly to come down and bring a man, then telephoned imperiously to the new cook.
"Dinner for four, order what you want. It must be nice, remember. It must be. Get some forced things, sweets, have salmon. Use your wits."
"It is a dear little hole. I'll be sorry to leave it," Bertie said, as they came back to the brightly-lighted little drawing-room. "Why do you want to, girlie?"
"It's so out of the way," Esmé grumbled.
The new maid put her into a dress of clinging black. One must mourn for first cousins.
Dolly was full of curiosity. Bertie was heir now. It was quite a change. "So nice, dear Esmé, to come to one of your wonderful little dinners again."
The only wonder of this dinner was its expense. The new cook had gone to Harrod's stores, chosen everything which cost money. Tinned turtle soup, plain boiled salmon, tinned and truffled entrée, tinned chicken, and a bought sweet.
Esmé grew angrier as it went on. Hated the guests' lack of appetite, their polite declaimers as she abused her food.
"I begin to hate this place," Esmé stormed to Dolly. "It's too small, good servants won't come here. Hardness was a good chance. She's gone to Denise Blakeney now, she can afford to pay her what she wanted, I couldn't."
Cards too went against Esmé. She lost and lost again, made declarations which depended on luck, and found it desert her. They did not play for high points, but she made side bets, and it mounted up. She cut with Bertie, saw his eyebrows raise as she went a reckless no trumper.
"My dear, what had you got?" he asked.
"Oh, a king and ace. I expected something above a ten from you, Bertie."
The Midshires were coming to Aldershot at once. Esmé had never been with the regiment. She did not want to leave London. She coaxed Bertie next day. Why not wait for another adjutancy, leave her in the flat, he could come up so often.
But the very weapons she used turned against her, the caress of her lips, her clinging arms were not things to leave. No, she must come to Aldershot. They would find a house and be happy there.
"And the bills, sweetheart?" Bertie Carteret had always seen to them. "I suppose you paid up all the old ones so we'll start fresh."
Esmé had forgotten her bills. She was irritable over money, cried out that her husband had learnt miser's thoughts in South Africa. "You fell in love with a good housewife there, Bert," she mocked, "who fried the cold potatoes of overnight for breakfast. Come, confess.... We've heaps of money to be foolish on, don't bother."
"There was never a penny left over," he said. "If we were sick, or if, well, anything happened we had no margin." Esmé frowned sullenly.
Two hours later she was rung up at her club.
"Esmé, I've seen Uncle Hugh, he wired for me. He is going to live in London, and he wants to make arrangements. Meet me at once. Where? Oh, the Carlton will do."
Erratically dreaming of riches Esmé left a game of bridge and flew off to the big restaurant. It was crowded for tea-time, people gathering at the little tables. The cold air called for furs. Their rich softness was everywhere, and among them all Esmé felt her coat attracted admiring eyes. Over her black dress, the blue lining brilliant over the dark, with her hair massed against a dead black hat, Esmé was remarkable.
"An actress?" she heard a woman ask. What Esmé would call a stodgy woman, expensively dressed, a country cousin with a London friend.
"No, a Mrs Carteret, remarkable-looking, isn't she?"
"Well, Bertie.Whatis it?" Esmé could scarcely wait as her husband ordered tea. "What has Uncle Hugh done?"
"Well, nothing. It is all for your approval, but Uncle Hugh is lonely. He wants his nephew to live near him. There is a great deal of business to see to. The Seaford estate and the Devonshire place, he farmed both. Uncle Hugh found the journeying trying." Briefly, he offered to pay Bertie the same pay as he had drawn from the Army, together with travelling expenses, if he would stay in London and go down to these places when necessary. No more.
"He hasn't promised to leave you the money then?" Esmé asked. "Oh, it suits me splendidly, I hated leaving town."
"No." Bertie Carteret shook his head. "He has promised me nothing, merely that I shall not lose through leaving the Army, nothing more."
Esmé grew angry then, abused the rich old man, forgot his trouble in her annoyance.
"He has so much. Why should we starve now when we are young?" she flashed.
"We have never quite starved, Es." Bertie Carteret laughed, then looked grave. "I thought we were so comfortable, so happy."
"One seems to want more and more as one lives in town." Esmé looked sullen. She too had thought the same, less than a year ago. Been so sure of it that she hated the thought of the third being who would have disturbed their peace. And now with so much more money she seemed poorer.
"That is a wonderful coat." Bertie looked admiringly at his wife. "You're wonderful altogether, Esmé, this time. With the stamp of Paris on your frocks. But of course Denise gave you heaps of things. You did a lot for her."
Esmé began to plan, to grow brighter. "We must take a little house, Bertie, get away from that box, nearer our friends."
"But we shall be no better off," he said.
"Oh, you must get money out of the old man. We'll save the rent on taxis. Who is it, Bertie?"
For Bertie had jumped up and was shaking hands with a slim girl of about twenty. Brown-haired, grey-eyed, pretty in a quiet way.
"It's Miss Reynolds," he said. "Miss Reynolds, Esmé. Mrs Reynolds was so kind to me at Pretoria when I was ill."
"Ill!" Esmé held out a jewelled hand. "I thought it was only repentance and indigestion."
"It was fever." Estelle Reynolds's voice was slow and musical, restful as her gentle face. "Captain Carteret was very ill, and my uncle tried to cure him."
"No idea," said Esmé. "I'd no idea. But so good of you.... Bertie, you should have told me." She was honestly fond of her husband.
"He did not want to worry you," said Estelle Reynolds.
Carteret was impressively glad to see Estelle. He talked eagerly of a dinner, a theatre.
His eagerness vexed his wife. She got up, dazzlingly handsome in her furs, the emeralds gleaming on her black gown.
"So sorry, Bertie, but this week is quite full, every day. Come to luncheon on Sunday, Miss Reynolds. I'll have some people to meet you."
Estelle laughed pleasantly. "My Sunday will be a country cousin's," she said. "Church, a very short luncheon, and the Albert Hall. You see, I've never been to London before." The girl looked a little hurt, a little snubbed.
"And I said I'd show it to you." Carteret let his wife walk on. "I'm not engaged. Let me take you and your aunt to Daly's to-night and on to the Savoy."
"Comic opera." Estelle shook her brown head. "If it might be the Shakespearian piece at His Majesty's. I should love to come."
It did not seem to suggest itself to Estelle to ask if Bertie Carteret's wife might wish to include him in her engagements. Esmé was one of those women who seem to stand alone.
"Very well then. I'll get seats at once," he said.
Making his way past little tables to the passage down the centre of the restaurant, Bertie stood for a moment looking from one woman to another.
Estelle Reynolds had gone back to her tea. She was not remarkable in any way, merely a rather dowdy girl sitting alone at a little table. Esmé had stopped to speak to friends near the door. She was brilliantly handsome, flashing out gay smiles, the mirthless smile of society, and splendidly dressed. As it grew thinner her face gave promise of hardness; she had replaced her lost colour very cunningly with some rose bloom. Carteret followed her slowly. He loved his wife, her touch, a look from her blue eyes always had power to move him, but he realized suddenly that she was too brilliant, too well-dressed for a foot-soldier's wife.
She was talking to Luke Holbrook, smiling at him, but the smile had lost its girlish charm; the kindly man who had been willing to help a young couple not well off had no idea of losing money to this brilliant woman.
Holbrook was always simply open as to his trade.
"I didn't forget your bundle of wines, fairest lady, they went on to-day." Mr Holbrook started and put up his glasses. "My love," he said, turning to his wife, "I see Lord Boredom taking tea with Miss Moover, and Mr Critennery is over there alone. My love, I fear I did not advance our interests by that most unfortunate invitation."
"The Duchess," said Mrs Holbrook, "will have a stroke. No one ever broke Miss Mavis Moover's occupation to her Grace."
"Ready, Esmé? You want a taxi back. Very well." Carteret went to the door. Before he had gone away Esmé had been quite content to take the motor 'bus which set them nearly at their door, or to go by tube. He sighed a little as he feed the gigantic person who hailed the cab for him.
"They've either come into some money, my love, or it is the Italian Prince whom Dollie Cavendish hints at," said Luke Holbrook, thoughtfully.
"What a dowdy little friend," yawned Esmé as they sped down Piccadilly. "What clothes, Bertie. I could only ask her to a frumpy luncheon."
"They were very good to me out there," he said quickly. "And ... I did not notice Miss Reynolds's dowdiness."
"No, one wouldn't. She is the kind of thing who goes with dowdiness. All flat hair and plaintive eyes." Esmé laughed. "Is she the good housekeeper who made you careful, Bertie? Eh?"
He looked out without answering. Something was coming between him and his wife. A rift, opening slowly in the groundwork of their love and happiness. She had changed.
Carteret's papers went in. They settled in London. Esmé looked for a house, fretting because she could not find one they could afford. Esmé often fretted as cold March was pushed away by April. She was restless, never quiet, unable to spend an hour at home by herself. Everything seemed to cost more than it had. People gave up the little kindnesses which she had counted. She was not paid for at theatres, nor sent flowers and fruit.
"The Carterets must have come into money," people said carelessly. "Esmé's simply gorgeously clothed, and they're looking for a house. Of course he's heir to old Hugh's place now."
More than once Bertie included Estelle Reynolds in their parties. She came, enjoying everything almost childishly; never tired of looking at the London streets with their roaring traffic. Hanging on every word at theatres, openly delighted with the dishes at smart restaurants.
"Everyone is so rich here," said Estelle in wonder. "They pay and pay and pay all round us."
They were lunching at Jules, and Esmé had carelessly ordered one or two things out of season. Estelle had watched the gold coins put on the folded bill.
"You would not be so extravagant, I imagine," Esmé laughed. She neither liked nor disliked the quiet girl, even found her useful now to do forgotten errands at the shops, to write her letters for her while Esmé lounged back smoking, to go off in the rain for a book which must be read immediately. For, wanting anything, Esmé could never wait. She snapped at her share of life, to fling it away barely tasted. Estelle came oftener and oftener to the flat. Settled flowers, put out sweets for dinner, had the bridge tables ready, and then went away. She was always useful, always willing to help.
"Extravagant!" Estelle answered. "No, I'd lunch at home."
"Off chops and fried potatoes," said Esmé, taking asparagus.
"If you go to the Club mankind invariably lunches off chops and steak," broke in Bertie. "Women are the lovers of fluffy dishes; they please 'em, I suppose, as new dresses do, because poor people can't have them."
"Estelle would lunch at home," laughed Esmé, "and go in a 'bus to see the shops in Regent Street, or perhaps to the National Gallery or the White City, and come home to make a new savoury which she had seen inHome Instructions, and do her accounts after dinner. Eh, little home bird?"
"Yes," said Estelle, simply. "Only I wouldn't live in London at all. I would make the country my stable meal, my chops and fried potatoes, and London my occasional savourybonne bouche. I should choke in a town."
Esmé laughed. "How absurd," she flashed out. "Now, be good children. I go to sell pieces of cloth at completely ruinous prices to aid something in distress. I know not what."
"Shall I take you home, Estelle?" Carteret stood looking out into the sunshine. "Lord, what I'd give to live in the country. To see green fields all round and have a horse or two in the winter, and laze over a big log fire when the day was done. But somehow, here, there is never an hour to laze in."
Hugh Carteret, grief stricken, had so far not seen his nephew's wife. Bertie was doing his work, going down occasionally to see the big places and look over the accounts with the stewards.
About a month after he had come back from South Africa, Esmé's first reckoning for extravagance was upon her. Unpaid accounts littered the table. Harrod's deposit was overdrawn. She sat frowning and petulant, as Bertie jotted down totals.
"We can't do it, Esmé; there are all the old bills left unpaid. We managed so well before."
Esmé smoked furiously, flung the thin papers about. People were robbers, her cook a fool.
"But we are not often in. You weren't even at home. It's beyond one, Butterfly; debt won't do. And then your frocks and frills."
"I can pay for those," Esmé was going to say, then stopped. How much of her five hundred, her scant allowance, had she anticipated. Then there would be a visit to Scotland, and she wanted to hunt. She could not spare much of it; fifty of it must go to the French dressmaker, another fifty to a jeweller. "Oh, it's sickening," she flung out in sudden petulant anger. "Sickening. Poverty is too hateful."
Bertie had to listen to an outburst of grumbling, of fretful wrath, because their income was not double its size. To be pinched, cramped when one was young, to be worried by bills, bothered by meannesses.
Bertie Carteret's face grew pale. He stood up, gathering the bills. "I had no idea that you were unhappy, Es," he said slowly. "We used to manage so well before I left. It was all sunshine then. I have some money I can dig out; we'll pay the bills and start again. Give me all yours to see."
Indulgence made Esmé penitent, almost grateful. That was right. Now Bertie was a dear, a sweet old boy. And they'd have a lovely summer, just as last year's had been.
She came over and sat on Bertie's knee, her face pressed against his, the perfume of her golden hair in his nostrils.
But with her soft arm about his neck, her supple body in his arms, Bertie Carteret did not hold her closer; she missed his quick sigh at her contact, the hotness of his kisses on her neck.
"Bertie, dear old Bert."
But as she moved her face a little he could see between him and the light the skilfully-applied red on her cheeks, the coating of powder round it. It was not love for him which brought her to him, but selfish relief at being released from worry. "Poor Butterfly," he said, kissing her gently. "It shall flutter through its summer. But spent capital means less income, Esmé, remember that."
"Oh, here's the wine account." He sighed again, looking at it. Esmé ran her finger down the items, there were no wholesale prices now. The hock was at its full value, the bill a heavy one. Jumping up, she railed at Luke Holbrook, called him traitor and mean and treacherous. Swore that if she could help it he would not get his peerage.
"The lilies and carnations, madam," said the tall maid, coming in with a bundle of flowers.
"Leave them there, Miss Reynolds will settle them for me, she is coming to lunch. And your Uncle Hugh, Bertie, I had forgotten."
"You'll have to take to cheaper flowers," said Carteret; "after all, they wither just as soon."
"Icannotskimp over flowers, Bert, I cannot." Esmé went off to dress.
"What could she skimp over?" Bertie wondered.
Estelle Reynolds came in quietly, smiled good morning, began quite naturally to get the vases ready. "How glorious they are," she said, as she put the long-stemmed forced carnations into slender silver vases. "They must cost a fortune now."
"They do." Bertie was writing to his broker. "They do, Estelle. Everything costs a fortune here just now. But we must come to the humble sweet peas next week, or something of its class. What a housekeeper you would make, Estelle."
"Would I?" She hid the pain in her soft grey eyes, turned suddenly away. One of the foolish women whose joy lies in sacrifice, who find stupid satisfaction in balanced accounts, in saving for the man who works for them, who in some mysterious way stretches the weekly allowance when the children come, and finds only happiness in the giving up to do it. A homely little brown thrush, looking, wondering at a world of gay-plumaged songless birds.
"I." Estelle's eyes were under her control again. She smiled bravely. "I am one of the dowdy people who like to mess in the kitchen and dust, value a pleasure for what it costs ... it's childish."
"The fault of the world's inhabitants is that they are stamping out childishness," he said slowly. "They have forgotten to take joy in blue skies and green fields because it costs them nothing to look at them; they are forgetting how to enjoy themselves except in herds. If we have Irish stew at a shooting lunch it must be spoilt by half a dozen expensive flavourings lest my Lady Sue or Madame Sally should say we are so poor that we can only afford mutton and potatoes and onions. Even the children must have tea at Charbonel's and sweets from Buzzard or Fuller, though possibly a packet of butterscotch or home-made toffee would be much more to their taste...."
Estelle laughed.
"I took the Handelle children out last week," she said. "Their mother asked me to—you remember you took me once there to sing and she's been kind to me—and we went on the top of a 'bus, and had tea at Lyon's, bought flowers at Piccadilly Circus, and oh, they did enjoy themselves, but Lady Eva was quite shocked."
"Oh, Estelle, thank you." Esmé came back, radiant in clinging black, the emeralds shining at her bare throat, a big hat framing her face.
Hugh Carteret came just then. An old man, deep lines of sorrow drawn on his face, shrinking visibly from any allusion to his loss, suffering from the grief which finds no relief in words. He was cold before Esmé's gush of greeting, looked at her critically and made scant response to her smiles.
"It was so good of him to come, they were hidden away down here. And oh, they did want to change and get a house farther west."
"Why not then?" Hugh Carteret asked.
"The dreadful rents," Esmé answered. "We can't afford it. And wedowant to move. The flat is so stuffy, so small."
"It seems big enough for two," Colonel Carteret answered, looking hard at Esmé. "Of course, if you had children I could understand."
"Oh, we couldn't afford children," she said, flinging a wistful note in her voice. And one not altogether feigned, for as she spoke she remembered the boy who was growing strong in the nursery at Grosvenor Square.
"Mrs Gresham," announced the maid.
"I'd no idea it was a party." Colonel Carteret looked at his black clothes and spoke reproachfully.
"It wasn't. Dollie Gresham was not asked, uncle."
Dollie made it plain in a minute. She knew Esmé was at home; she'd asked the maid and she came along.
"It's about a bazaar, Esmé. I want someone to help me to get one up for that new little hospital. Denise Blakeney would help Susie Handelle. We'd run it, you and I."
Through an elaborate, expensive lunch old Colonel Carteret was almost silent. Thevol au ventof truffled chicken had given way for forced fruit before Estelle got him to talk to her. He thawed before her gentle voice, a shy, troubled old man, numbed still by his loss. His boys had been his all. He could not realize that they had left him. He had saved, planned, improved for Cyril and George; now mechanically, because the places were there, he carried it on. He had seen very little of Esmé; until his boys' deaths he had been wrapped up in them, never mixing in Society. Now he looked at the expensive flowers in Venetian glasses; he tasted elaborate made dishes, forced fruits, ices, and once or twice he shook his head as if at some inward thoughts.
Dollie Gresham chattered of her bazaar. It was just the time for one, they would start it at once. Restlessly energetic, she went to the telephone after luncheon, rang up Denise Blakeney.
"Yes, Denise will help sell. Only think, Esmé"—this after a long pause—"Sir Cyril's given her another car, and that diamond pendant of old Lady Gilby's, you know, the one he was selling. Since that boy came"—Dollie hung up the receiver—"Denise gets all she wants, and a great deal more. She is simply, tiresomely happy, adores dear Cyril, and has a convenient memory for the past.Tiens, such is life."
Esmé's face was set, sullen, as she listened. Denise had everything. Denise was not generous; there were so many things which she could have given, yet the very tie between the two women seemed to destroy their old friendship.
In the flower-decked, richly-furnished little drawing-room old Hugh Carteret talked to Estelle. He looked bewildered, puzzled.
"Bertie told me they were not rich," he said. "Yet the place seems to me to be almost too luxurious, that they lack nothing."
"I think"—Estelle fidgeted a little, her grey eyes distressed—"that Esmé is very young, that she perhaps grasps at things, so to speak, perhaps spends a little more than she ought to."
"I am a judge of wines." Hugh Carteret nodded. "The hock was one of the best, the old brandy cost fourteen or fifteen shillings a bottle, the port was vintage. I tasted them all." He shook his head again.
Esmé, coming in, sat by him, tried every trick she knew of winning glance and smile. But her childish charm had left her; she could only hark back to her poverty, to her want of money, and each half-veiled appeal left the old man silent.
"You present-day women want too much," he said quietly. "You won't be content. You live too much for yourselves; if you had children now"—he stopped, his voice breaking. "I tell you what," he said, "if you are really hard up you can have Cliff End rent free. It's lovely there, close to the sea, and the staghounds to hunt with."
Esmé knew where it was, an old house croaking on the cliffs of Devon, near a country town, a place without society, without amusements. She shivered.
"It would be too big for us," she said, trying to speak gratefully. "Far too large to keep up; but thank you greatly, dear uncle."
"And too far from shopland," he said in his shy, shrewd way. "Yes, well, my dear, it was a mere idea."
"He'll do nothing for us, old miser," Esmé flung out in anger almost before the old man had left. "He is hateful, Bertie, your old uncle."
"Perhaps, looking round him, he does not think there is much to be done," said Bertie, drily. "I am very fond of old Uncle Hugh."
They drove up to Grosvenor Gate, strolled into the Park—the April day had tempted people out there; the beds were a glory of wall-flowers and spring bulbs. A green limousine, purring silently, pulled up close to them. Esmé turned swiftly; it held Lady Blakeney and the nurse, who carried an elaborately-dressed bundle of babyhood.
"Wait here." Denise, jumping out lightly, ran across to speak to friends. She was radiant, brilliant in her happiness, a woman without sufficient brain to feel remorse.
"Oh, Mrs Stanson, let me see him."
Esmé went to the side of the car; she had not dared lately to go up to the nursery at Grosvenor Square. Denise had forbidden it.
Mrs Stanson got down, holding the rosy, healthy boy; he chuckled, his blue eyes blinking, a picture of contented, soft-fleshed, mindless life. His mittened fingers closed round Esmé's as she looked into his face. Hers this healthy atom—hers, and Denise was rich, happy, contented because of him, while she, his mother, wanted everything.
"What a lovely mite." Bertie Carteret bent over the smiling baby. "He's got eyes of your colour, Esmé, true forget-me-nots."
"Yes. You do mind him well, nurse. Her ladyship—"
"It was great coaxing to get her ladyship to bring him out to-day," the woman said carelessly. "She's not like you, Mrs Carteret; she doesn't like these small things."
"Oh, yes, Esmé"—Denise came back—"looking at the Baa. He's a fine specimen, isn't he? Cyril gives him this car for himself, and a new one to me. Come and see me soon, won't you? Lancaster Gate, Hillyard—Lady Mary Graves's house. Bundle in that infant, Mrs Stanson, and if he cries I get out."
The car glided on. Esmé watched it going, with a sullen anger at her heart; she had to clench her hands to keep quiet. Did Denise never think? Had she no gratitude—no conscience—no regret for her successful fraud? None, it would seem.
"Esmé, you look quite white." Dollie Gresham's spiteful little giggle rang out close by. "Are you coming on to play bridge with me?"
"Not to-day, Dollie. I've a shocking headache. I'll go home and rest."
"It must be bad," said Dollie, "to take you to your fireside. Was the sight of that wonderful son and heir too much for you?—that Bayard among babies?Sans peur et sans reproche."
"You do look seedy, child." Bertie took Esmé to the gate and drove her back.
She lighted the gas stove—the flat teemed in labour-saving annoyances—and sat by it, the heat making the perfume of the flowers almost overpowering.
Bertie got her hot tea, sat with her, some of the old loving comradeship springing up between them.
"That little chap made me envious, Es," he said, after a long silence.
"Bertie—surely you wouldn't like a child?" Esmé's voice rang shrilly. "Surely you wouldn't. Coming to disturb us, crippling us!"
"People manage," he said slowly. "They manage. We could have gone out of London, lived more quietly. Every man wants his son, Butterfly; they are selfish people, you know."