"Hurry, Estelle; we shall miss the train," he said. "It's very late."
They were further away than they thought. The path by the river was rough; they ran panting up to the old house to see the man driving the dog-cart away from the door.
"It bain't no use, sir," he said; "she'm near station now, and it's two mile an' more."
"There's another?" Bertie said.
There was one more, getting them into London at four next morning. Estelle was put out, half frightened. Her aunt would be annoyed.
"But she will know it is an accident," she said. "And we can see the sea by moonshine now."
They saw it as they drove to the slow train, a wide shimmer of mystery, silver and grey and opal, frostily chill, wondrously limitless; the hoarse whisper of its waves booming through the still night.
"Esmé! Will Esmé mind?" Estelle asked as they steamed into London.
"She has gone to several balls; she will never know," he said a little bitterly.
He did not see Esmé again until next evening. The knowledge of this new thing in his life made him penitent, anxious to find again the charm of the golden hair, of the brilliantly-tinted skin. He came from a long interview with his uncle, whipping himself with a mental switch; determined to be so strong that his friendship with Estelle might continue as it was—reasoning out that he had been mad upon the cliffs, half asleep and dreaming.
He came in to find Esmé in one of her restless moods, reading over letters, peevishly crumpling bills, grumbling at poverty. He did not know that the memory of a pinched baby face was always before her eyes—that she feared for the life of the son she had sold.
"Why, Es," he said, and kissed her.
"Don't rumple my hair," she answered; "it's done for dinner."
"Worrying over bills?" he asked gently.
Esmé pulled away one letter which he had taken up. "I can pay them," she flashed peevishly. "Don't worry." Denise's allowance was due again—overdue—and Esmé did not like to write or telephone, and had not seen Lady Blakeney for a week.
It was due to her, and overdue to others. Claire's bill ran in for four pungent pages, and ran to three figures, which did not commence with a unit. There were jewels, the motor hire. Oh! of what use was five hundred pounds?
If she had had the boy here she would have gone to the country, been content for his sake.
"Don't worry." Bertie put his hand on hers. "Es—I've been talking to Uncle Hugh."
"Well?" She woke up, suddenly hopeful.
"Well, I'm his nephew. He will make me a big allowance, leave me all he has—if—"
"If what?" cried Esmé.
"If we have a son before he dies," said Bertie. "That is the only stipulation. If not, I remain as I am. He has some craze about another Hugh Carteret. Of course there will be the title later on."
"If we have a son." Esmé stood up and laughed. "A son!" she said, "a son! I—"
"Why, Esmé!" Bertie ran to her. "Oh, don't cry like that. My dear, don't cry like that."
The wild outburst of a woman in hysterics filled the little room.
"OH, of course, I'd forgotten." Denise had been reminded of her promise—looked vaguely annoyed. "H'm! I'm short now. Can't ask Cyrrie, can I? I'll bring you two hundred, Esmé! Give you some more in August, my quarter day."
"But I want it. I've run into debt counting on it," said Esmé, sullenly.
"Oh, you've got old Hugh to fall back on now Bertie's the heir. If I could ask Cyrrie—but I can't! Two hundred's a lot, Esmé. You must make it do."
"You'll be away in August," Esmé said. "You can't send me so much in a cheque."
"No. I'll get notes. I'll be sure to. I shall be at home. Wonders will never cease. I've got to keep very quiet just now," said Denise. "It's wonderful—and I'm not afraid."
"Oh!" Esmé sat up. "And—if it's a son, Denise, your own son—you—what will you do?"
"Yet must the alien remain the heir." Denise shrugged her shoulders. "I should never dare to tell. You don't know Cyrrie. He'd send me away somewhere with three hundred a year, and never see or speak to me again. For Heaven's sake, Es, remember that. Besides, it would all take some proving now."
"Be good to my boy or I'll claim him," said Esmé, stormily.
"Hush! Es. Don't!" Denise looked terrified. "And you dare not, either. Your Bertie would not forgive. Look here! I've got a pendant I don't want; take it and sell it. It's worth two hundred. And I'll scrape out three for you somehow. Oh, here's Cyrrie."
The big man came in. There was a sense of power about him and of relentless purpose. His under jaw, his deeply-set eyes, were those of a man who, once roused, could be cruel, and even merciless.
"Hello! Mrs Carteret." He was always cordial to Esmé. "We've missed you lately. Den, the boy's peaky—wants fresh air, his nurse says."
Esmé turned white, clenched her hands until her gloves split and burst.
"Send him to the sea," said Denise, carelessly. "Broadstairs, Cromer, anywhere, Cyrrie."
"No, I think we'll go home. It's better for you too." Sir Cyril's big jaw shot out. "We'll go home, Den. I've wired, and the boy can go on to-morrow. Drive down, it will do him good, in the big car."
"Oh!" Esmé saw that Denise objected, hated going, yet was afraid to object once her husband had decided.
"Oh, I'm glad you're sending him out of London," Esmé burst out. "He looks wretched. I am glad."
"He's your godson, isn't he?" laughed Blakeney. "You were good then, Mrs Carteret. Seen to-day's paper? That little fool of a Cantilupe woman has made a mess of it, and Cantilupe was right to take it to court. Seen the evidence? She forged his name to a cheque for five hundred to give to this wretched man. Trusted to Canty's absolute carelessness. He never looked at accounts. But the bank grew uneasy, 'phoned to Canty, and he said it was his signature all right and paid. Then he found out where the money had gone to, and all the rest, and she defended like a fool. The kindest fellow in the world, but he's merciless now. Told about the cheque so as to shame her."
"She was his wife. He should have remembered that," faltered Denise.
"She had deceived him," Sir Cyril answered. "No man worth the name forgets that. She deceived him. I couldn't forgive five minutes of it, especially as there are no children; not that sort of deceit. I was even too hard on folly once, but that's different." He went out of the room, big and strong and determined.
"Bother that boy!" stormed Denise. "There are three or four things I hate missing. Oh, bother! bother!" She stamped her foot in her impatience, frowning and biting at her fingers. "Oh, here, Esmé. Come to my room."
The maid was there, laying out a new gown.
"You can go, Sutton. Here! slip it away." Denise opened a case, pulled out a heavy pendant, a tasteless, valuable thing.
"Old Susan, Cyrrie's aunt, sent it to me when she heard I was a mother." Denise laughed. "Green said it was worth three hundred. I've loads of others, and no one will miss this. I'll get you the notes."
Denise was friendly again, more like her old self, but moved, as Esmé knew, by fear, and not by gratitude or love.
Denise was called to the telephone. Esmé was left alone for a time in the luxurious bedroom, standing by the open safe, enviously fingering the jewels. How lovely they were. A necklace of diamonds and emeralds; Cartier work; a jewelled snake with ruby eyes. A rope of pearls. Sapphires, opals, emeralds, all glowing as Esmé opened the cases.
"Oh, I thought her ladyship was here, mem," the maid had come in quietly. Esmé turned with a start.
"Her ladyship went to the telephone." Esmé closed her hand about the pendant, which she had been holding carelessly. She could see the maid watching her covertly.
"Oh, there you are, Denise." Esmé still held the heavy pendant, afraid to put it in her bag before the maid, afraid to show it.
"Yes. I'm late too. Cyril's waiting. We're lunching out. My hat, Sutton, my veil, quickly!"
Esmé slipped the pendant into her bag as the maid turned away. The Blakeneys drove her to Jules, where she said she would be lunching.
But, not hungry, she went on to Benhusan, a well-known jeweller, offering her pendant.
The head man took it, looking at the heavy stones.
"Yes, we could give two hundred for this, to break up. It's tasteless." He examined it carefully. "Came from us, originally," he said. "We all have our private mark, madam. Made to order, no doubt. I'll speak to Mr Benhusan, madam. One moment."
Esmé flushed with annoyance. They might look up the pendant, perhaps speak of it to someone.
She got two hundred and thirty for it and went out.
Mr Benhusan nodded at the heavy bauble. "It was made for the Dowager Lady Blakeney," he said. "I remember it. The centre stone is worth all the money we have given for it."
Absently, with a lack of her usual shrewdness, Esmé went to the door, opened it, and remembered her notes; they had paid her.
She had put three into her bag, when a thin hand shot out, grabbed the rest, and before she could even cry out, the thief was lost in the crowd.
Esmé stood stricken, shaking more with futile anger than anything else. Her brains were quick. If she went back, raised the hue and cry, what then? Bertie would ask her what pendant she was selling. The whole thing would come out.
Esmé walked away, her face white, her hands shaking. She counted what was left at her club in Dover Street; three notes for fifty each. So she was robbed of over a hundred, and someone must go unpaid. Unless Denise would make it up. There was too much loyalty in Esmé to think of working on her friend's fears. She sat brooding, smoking, too much upset to eat. A boy she knew came in, noticed her white cheeks—a thin and somewhat stupid youth, who posed as a Don Juan, considered himself irresistible.
"Not lookin' a bit well," he said. "No luncheon? Come along down to the Berkeley and have a little champagne. Let me look after you, dear lady."
Esmé was a beauty; he walked proudly with her, looking at her dazzling colouring, her well-formed, supple limbs.
She let herself be distracted by flattery, listened to foolish compliment, to praise of her glorious hair, her beautiful eyes.
Wouldn't she come for a drive some Sunday? The new Daimler was a dear. Down to Brighton or away into the country for a picnic. She must let him see more of her.
Angy Beerhaven leant across the table,empresse, showing how ready he was to love, to be a devoted friend.
Over champagne and sandwiches Esmé babbled a little, told of her loss, of how hard up she was.
With sympathy discreetly veiled behind his cigarette smoke, Angy hinted. Pretty women need never be hard up. Fellows would only find it a pleasure to make life easy for them if—there was friendship, real friendship, between good pals.
The restaurant was almost empty; they sat in a quiet corner. With wits suddenly sharpened, Esmé looked at the thin, weakly vicious face, at the boy's eyes glittering over her beauty, already seeing himself chosen. His carefully-tended hands were opening his gold cigarette-case. She shuddered. If she allowed those hands the right to caress her she could be free of debt and care—for a time.
Love affairs were butterflies of a season. Next year it would have to be someone else; there would be the distraction of it, the adoration which always pleases a woman; and then the fading, the breaking free. The meeting again with a careless good-morning, with the shame searing her soul as she remembered.
Distraction, a little less time to think, was what Esmé wanted. She saw too clearly for this. She had sold one birthright without thought; but not this second one of her self-respect.
She got up, smiling sweetly. It had been charming of Mr Beerhaven to look after her; she was feeling so much better now.
"But," he stood in front of her in her corner; she could see the eager look on his face. "But—she must let him go on taking care of her. Wouldn't she dine with him to-night? Do a theatre—have supper afterwards?"
Angy unadulterated from seven until one! Esmé smiled.
Unfortunately she was engaged, all day, every day this week. But would he lunch on Sunday? They were having a little party at the Ritz. He would meet her husband.
The eager look changed to one of sulky indecision. Angy Beerhaven was not sure if he could. If she'd have tea with him to-morrow he'd tell her.
Esmé promised to lightly; went away leaving the boy frowning.
"Is she one of your real stand-offs, or just wants to put a value on herself?" he muttered. "Bah! It's too much trouble if she does—pretty as she is."
Clutching the rest of her money, Esmé strolled about aimlessly; she gave up two engagements, would not go to her club because she was too restless to talk to her friends. Turned in at last to a tea-shop, where brown curtains made little alcoves, and thick blinds shaded the light. There were three or four tiny rooms, one opening from the other; the first where the decorous matron might sit and drink tea and eat muffins; the second and third where one could smoke; these rooms were separated by portières of Indian beads, rattling as one passed through.
Tired, her head aching from the champagne, Esmé went to the second room, sat down in a dim corner just by the door into the last, and ordered tea. It made her head clearer; she smoked, thinking deeply.
Voices drifted to her from the inner room. It was a mere cupboard, kept in semi-darkness.
She listened at length, listened with a start.
"Is it safe here by the door?"
The beads rattled. She heard Jimmie Gore Helmsley's voice.
"Only a few people get away. It's early yet. Look here, Syl, meet me at Brighton on Sunday. Do! We'll have a lovely day. I'll have a cousin—she lives there—to do propriety. Make some excuse and get off. We never have a day together."
"But if people heard of it?" Sybil Chauntsey faltered.
"No one will. No one we know goes to Brighton on Sundays, and if they do we are just taking a stroll. Do, Sybil! I deserve something. I—I wasn't hard-hearted over those bridge debts now, was I?"
Poor Sybil, with her hand pressed to her throat. She owed this man two hundred pounds now. If he went to her people she would be sent home in disgrace.
"No," she whispered. "No."
"We'll wipe 'em out for ever if you'll be a good child and have a simple spree. I'll give you back your I.O.U., your letters."
Her letters. Sybil knew that she had written two foolish, girlishly gushing notes, open to several constructions. In one she had spoken of that ripping tea at his rooms. She shivered again.
"I'll let you know," she faltered. "Oh! I'll try to come."
Esmé listened, but heard no more. Moving silently she slipped away to the blind-shaded window and got there just as the two came out. Her back was to them, her head hidden in a hastily-snatched-up newspaper. They did not notice her.
Tragedy and comedy were being played out, to each their lines and part.
Denise Blakeney, dressing for dinner, had to play her part without rehearsal.
"The sapphires, Sutton," she said, "the sapphires and diamonds. They'll go with this cream gown. And the aigrette with the sapphire stars."
Sutton's prim voice rose a little as she bent over the safe.
"Are you wearing the heavy diamond pendant, m'lady?"
"No." Denise flushed, bending over something on the dressing-table to hide her rising colour.
"It's not here, m'lady, and it was here at luncheon-time when I gave you the pink pearls."
"What's that?" Sir Cyril, big-jowled, heavy, strolled in.
Sutton repeated the news of the loss, turning over the cases. "The case is here," she said, "but I noticed it open."
"The pendant old Aunt Sukey sent?" Sir Cyril went to the safe himself. "That's valuable."
"I—it must be there somewhere. Lock the safe, Sutton." Denise would have told the maid she had sent the pendant to be cleaned. Cyril was one of the men who question closely. It would have been: "To which shop, Den? I could get it for you to-morrow."
"It must be there," she repeated sharply. "It's just muddled away; or I may have lost it. I'm very careless."
"We'll look to-morrow. It's time to go now." But big Cyril Blakeney stood still for a minute, staring at the safe; thoughts which he longed to smother rising in him.
He had seen Esmé Carteret bending over the safe, fingering the jewels. She could not ... it was a monstrous thing!
He put the idea away resolutely as though it were some crawling beast; came down to where his wife was getting into her motor.
"You must have dropped it," he said slowly, "but I thought you never wore the thing. We'll offer a reward."
"Oh, very well," Denise Blakeney answered nervously, pulling at the buttons of her gloves. "Oh, I may find it to-morrow. Wait and see. I often stuff things away into other places, if I am in a hurry."
"Esmé Carteret"—Denise could see the big, heavy face thrust forward, as Sir Cyril lighted a cigarette—"Esmé Carteret is—er—pretty well off, isn't she, now that old Hugh's sons are dead?"
"She says she's racked by poverty." Denise flushed and faltered at this mistake.... "Oh, yes, of course, he makes her a splendid allowance; he must, or Esmé could not go about as she does."
"You're an extravagant little monkey yourself," said Sir Cyril, equably. "I asked Richards a fortnight ago what your balance was, and he said five hundred. Yesterday I was in at the bank and he told me it was only a hundred."
"I paid bills and things." Denise was not enjoying her drive. Supposing this inquisitive husband of hers looked at her bank-book and saw a cheque for two hundred to self. He would ask what she had spent it on; if she had gambled? He was curiously particular about high play, and women losing foolishly.
Denise thought that she would change her bank; then knew again that she would be forbidden to. Cyril was indulgent, almost absurdly generous, but master in his own home. And—if he ever guessed—ever knew—Denise grew cold with chill fear; for, combined with dread, her shallow nature clung now to the big man beside her; she had forgotten her follies in the past.
It is a shallow nature's joy, it has power to forget.
On several separate stages the dramas and comedies were being played out, but in one great last act they might all come together for the finale, and be called true tragedy then.
Sybil Chauntsey was playing her little part. Half frightened, half resentful, trying to call herself a baby, to tell her awakening woman's mind that Jimmie Gore Helmsley was only her pal, that she was a fool to think otherwise. And then the look in the black eyes, the little subtle caresses he had given her, gave this the lie.
Sybil would not go to a dance that evening; she pleaded headache, sat in her stuffy room, looking out across the hot slates, thinking.
She was afraid. Who would help her now to pay this man and so get out of his power? She had learned to dread him.
She jumped up suddenly, ran to her writing-table. Old memories crowded back to her, her first years of coming out, when she had been so happy. She saw the library at the Holbrooks', felt warm young hands on hers, heard a voice saying:
"But if you are ever in any trouble, if you want help, send for me. I shall always be ready."
Her young soldier lover would help her now; and with wet eyes above the paper she wrote on, Sybil knew how she would turn to him again. How gifts of flowers and sweets, expensive dinners and suppers, stolen interviews for tea and subtle flattery, had lost their charm.
She only wrote a few lines, posted it to York, where his regiment was stationed; she wanted his help, urgently; would he come to herat once?
So the hot curtain of night fell on another act for Sybil.
Esmé had gone home after tea, found Bertie there, resting in the flowerless drawing-room.
With nerves strung up, with her hidden excitement wearing her out, she came to him, threw herself suddenly on her knees beside him, laid her face against his, tried to wake the thrill which the touch of his lips had given her once.
Bertie, surprised, drew her to him, kissing the red mouth.
It had been innocent of lip salve when he had kissed them first; her soft cheeks had not been plastered with expensive creams and powder. As hungry people imagine feasts, so Esmé sought for forgetfulness in passionate kisses, in new transports of love. Sought—and found no place. It seemed to her that Bertie had grown cold, that he no longer cared for her. He had never been a sensualist, only an honest lover.
Whispered hints of Gore Helmsley's, little stories he had told her, came to her as she rested her cheek against her husband's.
"Dear old Es," he said affectionately, but not passionately. "Dear old butterfly, it's nice to have my girlie loving again; but we'll be late for dinner if we don't dress quickly. Es, call your maid."
Esmé rang listlessly; she hardly knew what she wanted, save that it was something which would wipe away her bitter thoughts.
Through dinner she was recklessly merry, witty in her flashing way; brilliantly, a little haggardly, pretty. The patches of pink were more pronounced on her cheeks, her powder thicker.
Then, driving home in the cool, she remembered Sybil Chauntsey. Here was another woman about to make a mistake, to realize too late, as she had done, that money cannot repay peace of mind. Deep, too, in Esmé's mind, was a horror of sinning. She was instinctively pure herself; her ideas set deeply in a bed of conventionality. A girl of Sybil's type would suffer all her life if she once slipped, perhaps afterwards grow completely reckless, look on her one sin as so deadly that a host of others could matter little, and might drown thought.
Esmé forgot Sybil until Sunday morning. Angy Beerhaven had proved himself in earnest, had almost insisted on a trip in his new car. "Bring anyone—your husband and a friend," he said.
Esmé had agreed heartily. There was Estelle; she would like the drive. As the huge cream-coloured Daimler hummed softly at her door, Angy asked where they would go to.
"The sea would be lovely to-day," he said. "Or there are the Downs or the Forest."
"The sea!" Esmé shot out swiftly. "The sea!" she said.
"Then Brighton. It's a nice run; there are decent hotels. One only gets cold beef and cutlets in heaps of places."
"Brighton let it be," she said carelessly.
The Daimler seemed a live monster purring as she flew along the smooth roads, laughing at her hills, answering sweetly to her brakes, swinging her great length contemptuously past weaker sisters.
The salt kiss of the sea was on their faces as they dipped into Brighton.
"We'll run out again afterwards," Angy said; "get a good blow."
Esmé had been a merry companion on the way down.
Strolling on the front, Esmé started suddenly. Sybil might be here; she remembered the conversation now. In the huge place it would be almost impossible to find her. Jimmie would not come to the best-known hotels.
But if she could—it would be worth some trouble.
Esmé's fit of boredom vanished. She was full of plans. They would run off for a long run, come back to tea, dine again in Brighton and go home in the cool.
"They'll be quite happy anywhere," she said, nodding towards Estelle and Bertie. "We can go off by ourselves."
Angy's hopes grew deeper. His fatuously ardent glances were more frequent. He whispered eager nonsense to Esmé, hinted at happy future drives and meetings, of lending her the car altogether if she liked.
To have a sixty Daimler at one's disposal would be convenient, but as it would generally include Angy Beerhaven as chauffeur, Esmé shrugged her shoulders. A taxi suited her better, though she did not say so.
After tea she grew restless; wanted to see other hotels, to inspect Brighton. The Metropole was too crowded.
"Come with me," she said to Angy; "we'll prospect, and telephone here if we find some nest which suits me."
A cabman gave her information.
"Quiet hotels, but smart, nice? He'd tell of one, yes, miss, he would."
It was only as they went on that Esmé realized the smirk of innuendo on the man's red face.
"Often driven parties there as wanted to be quiet an' comfabul," said Jehu, taking a shilling graciously. "Thank you, lady, and good luck."
Esmé went to two or three places, read the dinner menu carefully, made Angy wonder what restless spirit possessed her, then came to the jarvey's recommendation, a small hotel facing the sea, standing modestly behind a long strip of garden. The garden was full of roses and shrubs, so that the porch was almost concealed.
The lady peering out of the little office was unmistakably French.
"Madame wished to see the dinner menu—but certainly! Madame would want a private room, no doubt; the coffee-room was small and the tables already crowded."
"It is a hotel of private rooms," said Esmé to herself. She went on to a small, dimly-lighted veranda, set with huge palms and cunningly-placed nooks. She paused abruptly.
"I must go back! Oh, I must!" said Sybil's voice. "We shall miss the train—please let me."
"My cousin cannot be any time. Most annoying her being out all day. Don't spoil a perfect day, little Sybil. There's a late train we can catch. Or, better still, hire a car and drive up."
Esmé turned swiftly to her somewhat bewildered cavalier.
"Oh, Mr Beerhaven," she said. "Will you go to the telephone—order dinner at the Metropole, and see if they have quails—and peaches. It's the best place, after all. I'll wait here for you. Hurry, or they won't have shot the quails."
Angy left, ruminating on the logic of women.
"But give me my letters," she heard Sybil plead. "Please do! You promised them if I came here to-day."
"I promised—I will fulfil. After dinner you shall have your letters, little girl. Now, don't get silly and nervous."
"Of course I'll send you that money when I can," Sybil faltered, "but—"
"I won't ask you for the money. You were a good child to come here, little Sybil."
Esmé looked in.
Sybil was lying back in a long chair, her face white, her eyes half resentful, half fascinated. Jimmie Helmsley, bending over her, began to stroke her hands softly. His dark eyes bore no half thoughts in them.
"After dinner," he whispered. "I won't tease you any more about that silly debt."
Esmé pushed aside a spiky frond; she was righteously angry.
"Oh, Sybil," she said. "Your mother asked me if I came across you to take you home in our car. I was sampling hotels and luckily ran you to earth."
Sybil sprang up. Resentment, fascination, merged to sudden wild relief. She had told her mother that she was spending the day with a school friend.
"But—How very lucky your running across us." Gore Helmsley's teeth showed too much as he smiled; it made his greeting exceedingly like a snarl.
"Oh, yes, so lucky." Esmé listened to Helmsley's pattered explanation. "His cousin, Mrs Gore, etc. Very awkward. Out of Brighton. They had come here to wait for her."
"Very awkward," said Esmé, drily. "Well, you must join us at dinner. You can't wait here—alone."
A waiter padded noiselessly in. Dinner would be ready in ten minutes in Number Twenty-seven. They had procured the roses which Monsieur had ordered.
It amused Esmé a little to watch Gore Helmsley fight back his anger, mask himself in a moment in a thin cloak of carelessness. He followed the waiter into the hall.
"Sybil," said Esmé, sharply, "this is not wise, not right."
"We came to meet a cousin," Sybil whimpered. "She never came. I had to come—I had to. And now he's angry." She shivered a little, half tearful, half frightened.
"No, she would not come," said Esmé, drily; "but lie as I lie, my child, or there may be some pretty stories floating about London."
"Oh! you've ordered dinner," she said to Angy, "and I've just found Miss Chauntsey. She was dining with Captain Helmsley's cousin, Mrs Gore. But she is putting her off and joining our party at the Metropole."
Mr Beerhaven opened his mouth twice without emitting any particular sound.
"She's just gone home, hasn't she, Sybil?" said Esmé. "Quite a pretty woman. Come along."
Again Angy opened his mouth and shut it. It was not his part to say that he knew Mrs Gore to be in London. Angy was not altogether bad-hearted and he disliked Jimmie Gore Helmsley.
"Rotten!" said Mr Beerhaven, speaking at last.
"Eh?" said Esmé, sharply.
"Rotten luck, y'know, on Mrs Gore, but so glad. We'd better drive back. And a rotten chap," said Angy, forcibly. "You're a brick, Mrs Carteret." This speech made Esmé understand that Angy Beerhaven was not as big a fool as he looked.
In the cab Sybil leant back, frightened. She was afraid of Gore Helmsley's too-pleasant smile—afraid of the look in his eyes.
Esmé had whispered a few swiftly-spoken words to him, directing that their lies should be alike.
"It was exceedingly awkward," she said drily.
Angy had ordered everything he could think of. They began on iced caviare and finished up with forced peaches. He was exceedingly rich, and a snare wrought of gold was the only one he knew of.
Sybil was quiet through dinner, eating nothing, visibly unhappy.
Afterwards, as they sat in the cool, smoking, Gore Helmsley slipped to her side.
"Was there ever anything so unlucky?" he said.
"It was—very unlucky," said Sybil, dully.
"That woman hunting round for dinner, so she says. She's fairly decent, I fancy, won't blab. She lied brilliantly. It was so very awkward, and now Cissy will be quite disappointed. She 'phoned to say she was just starting to meet us. It was a lovely day together," he whispered. "Come to tea with me to-morrow, Sybil."
"You promised me my letters," she shot out, her heart thumping, "and my I.O.U. Give them to me."
"To-morrow," he said lightly. "I would have given them to you to-night, Sybil. Silly child ever to sign things."
Sybil's lip trembled; the snare was about her feet.
A tall man pushed his way through the crowd, looking anxiously at the tables. He was covered with the dust of a long journey; he came quickly, staring at each group.
"Oliver!" Sybil sprang to her feet, rushed across to him. "Oh, Captain Knox, why did you not come yesterday?"
"I only got back to York this morning. I motored to London, and it took me hours to find your mother. Who is that—in the shadow?"
"Captain Gore Helmsley." Sybil's voice grew shrill.
"And Sybil is here with me," said Esmé, coming out of another shadow. "Take her for a walk before we start. I want to talk to my friend here."
"Sybil—why did you write for me like that?"
"I wanted you to save me, and you never came," she faltered.
"But I am not too late. My God, not that!"
Then, stumblingly, she told him her story of sorrow.
"I was going to ask you to pay the debt for me," she said, "to get me clear. I dare not tell my mother or father."
"I brought money, as you said you wanted it; and there is nothing more, Sybil?" he said, taking her hands.
"Nothing. We spent the day here—waiting for Mrs Gore. And oh, I was afraid."
"Mrs Gore is in London. I saw her as I was looking for your mother."
"In London!" Sybil's cheeks grew very white. It had all been a lie. She would have dined at the small hotel, waiting for the woman who could never have joined them. And afterwards, alone with the man she feared and yet who influenced her.
Sybil was no innocent fool; the blackness of the chasm she had just missed sliding into was plainly before her eyes.
She flung herself suddenly into Knox's arms.
"Oh, Oliver, if you want me still, take me," she sobbed, "for I am a fool, and not fit to look after myself. I don't mind being poor; I only want you."
Captain Gore Helmsley, meanwhile, was listening to a few softly-uttered home-truths from Esmé Carteret.
"You might have ruined the child's reputation," she said angrily. "She was a fool to come here with you. Married women are fair game, Jimmie, but a girl has not learnt how to guard. It's not fair."
Sybil, with the frightened look gone from her eyes, came back to the table on the veranda.
"I owe you some money, Captain Gore Helmsley," she said clearly, "for bridge debts. It was good of you to let it stand over." She laid a cheque on the table. "Will you give me back my acknowledgments? Oliver is paying for me—we are going to be married."
Jimmie, smiling sweetly, pulled out his pocketbook, took from it a neatly-folded paper.
"And—two letters—referring to the debt," said Sybil, steadily.
"Not altogether to the debt." Jimmie laughed. "You are as unkind now, Miss Chauntsey, as you are dramatic."
"I want them," she said coldly. "You gave me your promise that I should have them back."
Jimmie took out the letters.
"I am giving them to Oliver to read, and then we'll burn them," she said simply.
"Oh, hang it!" said Gore Helmsley, blankly; "thishasbeen a nice evening!"
"In which you got your dinner and desserts," flashed Esmé, laughing openly.
A solemn child, healthy in body, but with wistful eyes, paddled his spade into wet shingly sand at Bournemouth. He was precociously wise, already given to thought, to wondering as children wonder.
What Cyril wondered was why there were so many scold words in the world? Why it was always, "Don't, Cyril!" and "Cyril, run away!" or "Cyril, I will not have you rough to your brother."
Why mother, who was a beautiful thing, would catch up little Cecil and look so bitterly at him, and on more bitterly still to Cyril.
"Funny how her ladyship adores Master Cecil," Mrs Stanson would confide to the under-nurse; "being delicate, I suppose."
Cyril was heir to four places, to grouse moors and fishings, to diamonds and plate and pictures, all entailed. Cecil would have a younger son's ample portion, and no more. Cecil was puny, a weakling; his father sighed over him.
Paddling his spade, Baby Cyril came round the castle, brushed a little roughly against Baby Cecil; the spoilt child fell and whimpered.
"Cyril sorry. I sorry, Cecil."
"Cyril, you rough little wretch!" Lady Blakeney leant forward, slapping the boy harshly. "You little bully!"
"I"—Cyril touched the white place which stung on his soft cheek, the white which turned to dull red. "I—" His mouth quivered, but he said nothing, merely looked out at the heaving sea.
The pathos in his child's eyes might have touched anyone but a mother jealous of another woman's child, storming behind a rage which must be hidden.
Esmé Carteret's baby must oust Denise's son from his kingdom.
"Ah, Denise! How can you?" A pained cry, another woman springing forward, catching the slapped baby to her. "Denise! How can you!"
"Why not, Esmé? He's a born bully. Bad-tempered, always hurting Cecil. A great strong tyrant."
The women's eyes met with anger and dislike flashing in both glances.
It was not altogether chance which had brought Esmé to Bournemouth. She hunted health now, strove for what once had been hers to trifle with—hunted health and peace, and found neither.
Denise's payments were desultory; she had to show outward civility to Esmé to make up for the half-yearly hush-money. Sir Cyril had houses at Bournemouth; she had offered one to the Carterets for nothing.
"Poor Esmé, Cyril. I told her she might have the little lodge. She's looking wretched."
"She's the most restless being on earth. Of course, Den; give it to her. If she had a pair of boys, now, as you have."
"Yes." Denise had to hide the pain in her eyes, for with Cecil's birth had come a fierce mother-love, making the careless indifference which she had felt for Cyril turn to bitter dislike. He got the measles, brought it to her boy, who almost died of it; whooping-cough, before the child was old enough to bear it well.
They were down at Blakeney Court when Denise told her husband that she had lent Esmé the lodge. The boys were playing outside; the little one crawling solemnly, Cyril arranging sticks and flowers into a pattern.
"He's got an extraordinary look of someone," said Sir Cyril. "Cecil's a true Blakeney, if he wasn't so delicate; but Cyril's finer—not like us; he mopes and dreams already."
If there were no Cyril! Denise clenched her hands, understood how men felt before they brushed aside some life in their path. That day was wet later; she found the children playing in the picture-gallery, with Nurse Stanson showing a friend the Romneys and the Gainsboroughs, and other treasures which represented a fortune.
Cyril loved one cavalier, painted on a fiery charger, an impossible beast, all tail and eyes and nostril. The boy was happy staring at the picture, patting at the great frame. "Cyrrie's man," he would say. "Cyrrie's man."
"Oh, Cyril's man—all Cyril's men," Denise flashed out furiously. "No men for Cecil."
"Cecil not care for Cyril's man, mummie," the child's eyes looked wistfully at Denise. "He never look up yet."
"Oh, they'll all be yours—gloat over it!" snapped Denise. "Take your friend on, Mrs Stanson; show her the picture of Lady Mary Blakeney—the one by Lely. Yes, all yours!" Half unconsciously she pushed Cyril; he slipped on the polished floor, slid toward the fireplace, fell with his yellow head not three inches from the old stone kerb.
Nurse Stanson ran to him, screaming. Demon-driven, Denise had watched. If—if—the little pate had hit the hard, cold stone, if her boy had been left heir.
"All right, mummie—Cyril not hurt," he had said, bravely, as he got up.
And now—they were playing at Bournemouth, and Baby Cyril had come through croup, with the best doctors in London striving against King Death for the life of Sir Cyril's heir.
How many children would have died in the wheezing, cruel struggle! At heart it made Denise a murderess, and she hated herself for it.
"You—you are cruel to that child," Esmé said. "You are, Denise. Take care."
Two small, sand-dusted hands pushed her away. Cyril backed with dignity.
"Mummie only made a miftook, tank you," he said—"only a miftook."
He was loyal to the woman who hated him. Her child, yet he pushed her away, would not accept the clinging tenderness of her hands. Esmé sat down again, her eyes hard and bitter.
The years had changed her greatly. Her dazzling beauty had not so much faded as hardened. Her eyes were still bright, her hair gold; but the flush of red-and-white was all art now; her mouth had tightened; the brightness of her blue eyes was that of aching restlessness.
She had tried rest cures and come away half maddened by the quiet, by her leisure to think. She had travelled and come home to England because the boy was there.
Sometimes she would turn to Bertie, show the same half-wild outbursts of tenderness which she had first shown on the day she had sold the pendant; trying to find comfort in his caresses, clinging to him, pouring out tender words. Then the phase would pass. Without perfect confidence perfect love cannot exist. There was a secret between them; they were lovers no longer. For weeks she would go her own careless way, spending recklessly, always in debt, paying off the mites on account which make debts rolling snowballs, mounting until they crush the maker.
Sometimes Denise was difficult to get at; sometimes she said she was afraid of Sir Cyril. The boy's price came in small sums, fifties, twenties; often frittered away on a day or two's foolish amusement.
Old Hugh Carteret made his will, left it ready for signature.
"When you have a child, Bertie, I will leave you everything," he said, "and make your allowance up to what my boys had." He sighed as he spoke of his loss.
Esmé would have welcomed a child now—a mite to wipe out Cyril's memory, but none came to her.
She had taken to concealing her debts, to paying them as well as she could, for Bertie grew sterner as the years passed.
"I believe that Reynolds girl advises him," Esmé once confided to Dollie Gresham. "They're always talking sense."
"So frightfully trying," sympathized Dollie kindly; "kind of thing one learns up for maiden aunts, or uncles about to die; but in everyday life, unbearable."
Esmé's old friends dropped her a little; she lost her fresh, childish charm; she was always hinting at her poverty; asking carelessly to be driven about in other people's cars, picking up bundles of flowers and carrying them off, vaguely promising to send the money for them; but she hadn't time to go round to get her own. She wanted now to be entertained rather than entertain. She was feverishly anxious to win at bridge, and irritable to her partner if they lost.
The club saw more of her. Men friends dropped Esmé after a time; the disinterested spending of money is not the way of ordinary mankind. Dinners, suppers, flowers, theatres must have their credit account on one side of the ledger; and Esmé would have none of it.
Behind the aching love for her lost boy she liked her husband, and even if she had not liked him, would not have deceived him.
Stolen interviews, bribed maids, carefully-arranged country-house visits, were not of her life.
She sat still now, staring at the sea. Sometimes she would get into a bathing dress, and swim out. She was a fine swimmer, but the ripple of the salt water meant an hour's careful repairs. Her figure, too, had lost its supple beauty and she did not care to show it.
Estelle Reynolds was swimming, carefully, with short, jerky strokes, Bertie holding one hand under her small, firm chin.
Estelle's mother had married again; the girl lived on with her aunt in London. A dull life, only brightened by her friendship with the Carterets.
With eyes which would not see Estelle and Bertie Carteret had put aside that day in Devonshire, tried to hide from each other how sweet it was to meet and talk, how easy to drop into the fatally intimate confidences when man and woman tell of their childhood, and their hopes and fears and foolish little adventures, as men and women only tell to those they care for.
"She is no swimmer," said Esmé, contemptuously, "that Reynolds girl."
"Your husband takes care of her." Denise Blakeney's laugh was full of spiteful meaning. "He will teach her to swim, belle Esmé."
"I'll swim myself; I'll show them how." Esmé's bathing dress was by her side. She picked up the bundle, calling to her maid; regretted the impulse before she had got to her tent; flung herself hurriedly then into the thin webbing, fastened on stockings and sandals and a bright-coloured cap, and ran out.
"Here, Bertie, tell Estelle to look at me." Vanity breaking out as she poised on the board, slipped into the cool water, swam easily, powerfully out to sea; the rush of the water soothed her nerves; she was its master, beating it down, cleaving her way through it. Treading water, she looked through the translucent depths; how quiet it was there. What if she gave up struggling and slid down to peace? She looked down, morbidly fascinated. But before peace there would be a choking struggle; the labouring of smothered lungs for precious air; the few moments of consciousness before the blackness came.
A child's voice rose shrilly from the shore.
"No, mumsie, Cyril didn't. He not sorry, 'cos he didn't."
Esmé turned and swam back. She could not die. She would have a son of her own to still the longing for the sad-eyed boy she had sold.
"See, Estelle—strike out! Don't be afraid. Let Bertie go."
"But I am afraid, horribly. And I like one toe on the sand," said Estelle, placidly. "I swim all short, somehow."
"It's because you are afraid." No one was looking at her; Esmé's interest in the swimming died out suddenly; she grew bored again, fretful.
She went in, the bathing dress clinging to her, showing how thin she was growing.
"You had better go in too, Estelle. You've been out for an hour. No, you'll never swim the Channel."
Half nervously Bertie sent the girl away, tried to forget the thrill of contact as he held up the firm little chin, as he touched her soft round limbs in the water.
The girl was so completely fresh and virginal, with a new beauty growing in her face and sweet grey eyes. She was lithe, active; he watched her run to catch his wife, to walk in beside her.
Esmé was quite young, but she walked stiffly; she was growing angular.
The two women pulled to the flap of the tent, flinging off their dripping things. Esmé had thrown a silken wrapper over her shoulders; she stood looking into the long glass she had hung up in a corner. A sense of futile anger racked her as she looked; the powder was streaked on her face; the rouge standing out patchily; she looked plain, almost old. The mirror showed her slim body, with limbs growing too thin, with her girlish outlines spoilt and gone. Behind her, unconscious of scrutiny, she watched Estelle drying herself vigorously, perfect of outline, with rounded arms moving swiftly, slight and yet well-covered, a model of girlish grace.
With a muttered exclamation Esmé looked at tell-tale marring lines, began hastily to put on her expensive under-garments; cobwebby, silken things, trimmed with fine real lace.
"Go for my powder, Scott"—Esmé's maids never stayed with her for long—"for my powder, quickly!"
"A clumsy woman." Esmé lighted a cigarette, sat in the shadow, accentuating the age she had seen by knowing of it, lines of unhappiness deepening in her handsome face.
Scott, objecting to a quarter of a mile in scorching heat, went mincingly. Came back with powder alone, without rouge or lip salve, or face cream—stood woodenly listening to an outburst of abuse. They were going on at once to a picnic luncheon; the motors were waiting. Denise had called out twice impatiently.
"You said powder, mem."
"I cannot go like this. I must get back; and they will not wait."
Esmé had denounced the picnic as a bore in the morning; now she knew what it would be like to sit alone at a cold luncheon and miss the drive.
"Madame"—a soft voice spoke outside the flaps of the tent. Scott, enraged and giving notice, had left to bridle in the sunshine—"is there anything I can do for Madame?"
It was Esmé's old maid, Marie. The girl came in with a Frenchwoman's deftness, and pulled a make-up box from her pocket.
"Pauvre, madame; after the bath too. I always carry this."
Marie dabbed swiftly until the streaked complexion was made cunningly perfect. Marie was out of a place—had left her last mistress, a plebeian nobody.
"With no dresses to come to me but those in violet silks or of the colour called tomato!" cried Marie. "Oh, Madame! And with no life, no gaiety, nothing but five-o'clock parties, and long luncheons, and, madame—oh, but raging when she lost at the bridge. Mon Dieu! So I left Madame. It is true one night I did put on the false plait—oh, but not carefully, for a dinner, but after a great scolding my fingers did tremble. Madame's great guest was an Eveque, what you call down Church, and strict. James the footman told me, and it was dreadful; it was to his lap the loose plait fell. I left. Madame is ravishing, and I would I were again in the service of my dear Madame."
It was easily arranged. Esmé forgot that Marie might know a little and guess more. She sent the irate Scott away immediately, and directed Marie to the house they were lodging in.
A glance at the glass had made Marie seem indispensable; a brilliantly handsome face was reflected there now, pink-cheeked, white-skinned, smooth.
"Esmé! What have you been doing? We are hopelessly late, and we are driving you."
"All my powder was washed off"—Esmé was frank, up to a certain point—"I'm sorry, Denise."
"And Cyril will bring the children; they are gone in the small car." Denise was irritated, impatient.
Sir Cyril drove; a big, pearl-grey Mercedes hummed away, nosing through traffic, sensitive as a child, eager as a hunter.
The picnic was on the cliffs, miles away. They lunched in a dazzling sun, since it is ever in the mind of man that he enjoys himself more away from his own cool dining-room, seated on hard ground in the heat.
The Blakeneys' cook knew that which was indigestible and therefore indispensable. Lobster mayonnaise, cold salmon, devilled shrimps, galantines, pastry, whipped cream.
The appetite of picnickers is a great thing, and one which towards tea-time wonders what possessed it. But girls laughed merrily, planning strolls by the shimmering sea; they had brought shrimp nets. Girls with pretty, unspoiled feet would take off shoes and stockings and paddle into pools, treacherous places where one slipped and wanted help to steady one.
Other girls would sit quiet in shady nooks. Youth loves its picnics where it may wander in couples; and mamma loves them, knowing how sunshine and fresh air and the folly of shrimp-hunting all lead to the hour when the young man feels he cannot do without the merry, pretty, foolish thing who cries "A crab!" and clings to him.
Denise had asked young people; she had no London friends down here. She watched them pair off as she sat down in the shade—listened to shrill laughs and merry voices.
Esmé, yawning, bored again, strolled away alone; there was no one she wanted to talk to. The sea had slipped far out; opal-tinted pools gleamed on the sands and shingle; brown seaweed clung to the rocks.
The children, busy with pails, were gathering shells and stones, looking with delight at the gay colours of the pebbles as they picked them up, wet and glistening, to fade into dull-hued things of red and brown and grey.
Esmé waited with them; helped Cyril to find yellow shells and brilliant bits of polished brick and pebble.
He looked pale, wistful. It was in her mind to shriek out her secret aloud—to pick the child up and cry out that he was hers and she would keep him.
How she had dreaded his coming; how gladly she had arranged the plot with Denise. And now she knew that her heart was no harder than other women's; that nature was stronger than her love of indolence and pleasure. If she had been honest and patient Bertie would be heir now to several thousands a year, and this child, her son, to a title. He was hers and she had cheated him, given him to a loveless life, sent him into unhappiness. Who would have dreamt of Denise having a child, of the bitter jealousy of this false son.
"And we dare not," whispered Esmé to the pebbles, "we dare not tell."
Cyril was settling his pebbles in rings and loops, making quaint patterns of them, on a strip of dry sand.
"Funny thing." Bertie Carteret strolled across to his wife. "I was always at that when I was a kiddie. Let me help, Cyril. I used to love making patterns."
"Did you?" said Cyril, solemnly. "I does."
Esmé saw the faces together. There was a likeness, faint, but yet plainly visible. The same level eyebrows, finely-cut nose, and eyes with their power to suffer.
"Playing?" Sir Cyril joined them, the children's faces lighting up, for they loved the big man. "We'll all play. Let's dig a castle. Cyrrie"—his arm closed round the elder boy—"mummie says you were naughty to-day—pushed Cecil."
"Mummie made a miftook," said Cyril equably.
"Mummies never make miftooks," Sir Cyril answered gravely. "Never. Cyril must be a better boy and not bully the baby. I don't want to punish you, Cyril."
"It doesn't last long, dad—if she'd like you to." The boy's eyes, with an old look in them, met Sir Cyril's. "I don't mind, dad—it's soon over."
Esmé's fingers closed on a handful of pebbles, so closely that when she let the wet stones fall her hands were marked and bruised.
The boy was telling them calmly that he was used to punishment. Her boy!
Sir Cyril grunted to himself. His wife adored delicate Cecil; had never cared for the elder boy. It puzzled the big man, vexed him, so that he made a pet of Cyril, loving him as the child whose coming had made such a change in his own life; the strong, big boy who was a credit to the name.
Foolish young people hunted for shrimps until they were weary; then, looking at the advancing sea, they whispered how dreadful it would be to drown, and listened, flushing, as proud young manhood assured them that to swim to shore with such a burden would be a joy. The crawling baby waves, inch deep in their advancing ripples, heard and laughed. To prove devotion young manhood would have welcomed white-crested rollers, swift currents running fiercely between them and the land.
Bertie had wandered far out, Estelle Reynolds with him.
They talked of books and plays, but always ending with the same subject, the lives of two human beings called Albert and Estelle.
"If one only could live down at Cliff End," he said. "I wanted to go there now, but Esmé would come here. Oh, how tired I am of asphalte and 'buses, and the comforts of clubs. I hunted five days last winter, Estelle."
"But you shot a lot," she said.
"At huge house-parties, with a two-hours' luncheon to be eaten in the middle of the day, and bridge to be played when one is dead sleepy after dinner. I have an old-fashioned liking for scrambling over rough ground with a setter and a spaniel, and bringing home a few snipe and a pheasant or a couple of duck. They give me more joy than my pile of half-tame pheasants, reared for slaughter, or my partridge or grouse. My friends wouldn't come to my shoots, Estelle. And—Esmé's friends"—he shrugged his shoulders—"they are too smart for me. She's straight herself as Euclid's line, but—one hears and sees—Dollie Gresham, for instance."
"Well?" said Estelle.
"She is a very clever bridge player," he said drily. "Oh, I say nothing, but I've watched the people she picks out to play with. Aspiring idiots who think high stakes give them a reputation as fine players. There's Gore Helmsley, too—the black-eyed Adonis. I meet him everywhere, and my desire to kick him flourishes unappeased. There are queer stories afloat about the man. There was Sybil Knox; she won't speak to him now, almost cut him at the Holbrooks last Christmas. He's running after Lady Gracie de Lyle now, a little, dolly-faced baby who goggles into his black eyes and thinks him magnificent."
"Oh, Bertie! Goggles!" said Estelle.
"Well, she does. She's got china-blue eyes, just like saucers; and she's barely eighteen. I spoke to her mother, and she said it would make the girl less school-girly to be taken up for a month or two by a smart man—that is a word," grunted Bertie, "which I'd like to bury. 'Smart'—it's a cloak for folly, extravagance, display and gambling—for worse. Never be smart, Estelle."
Estelle looked at her brown hands and remarked drily that she did not think she ever would be.
"They know no rest, these people," he said. "They wake to remember all they absolutely must do, and how many meals they must eat with their friends. Madame breakfasts in bed. Monsieur picks at devilled kidneys in the dining-room. He has his glass of port at twelve at the club. She has hers before she goes shopping. Then luncheon, bridge, drives, parties, tea; more bridge-parties, cocktails, dinner. Theatre, and bridge, a ball; supper; bridge again; devilled bones and chloral; they are too tired to sleep naturally. And since all this must pall, they must have some zest of novelty, and so go through the oldest round on earth—that of stolen meetings and hidden letters, and the finding out if a new lover has really anything new to say to them. If they lived in the country and looked after their houses and their gardens, and just had a yearly outing to amuse them, they wouldn't all go wrong from sheer nerves. The Town is swallowing home life, Estelle; the smell of the asphalte gets into their nostrils, the glitter and noise of restaurants become necessity. We cannot be bothered with a cook, so the restaurant for the flat can send us in what it chooses, called by any name it pleases. We get our breakfasts in now in the new flat. And anything else we want. Esmé only keeps two maids. Everything is exceedingly cold by the time I get it, and if we have people to dine it means crowds of things from Harrod's, but it all saves trouble. And to save trouble is the spirit of the age. To eat glucosey jams, and drink cider which never heard of apples, and so forth. I believe, in the future, that every square and street will have its monster kitchens with lifts running to each house. No one will cook."
"And one day," said Estelle, laughing, "will come the swing of the pendulum, and we shall go back to an England which bakes and preserves and brews, and finds out how healthy it makes its children."
"No." Bertie shook his head. "We are going too fast for that. So fast that one day, with its motors and aeroplanes, old England will find it has fallen over a cliff, and lies buried in the sand of Time, forgotten. The brakes will not always act, and exceeding the speed limit generally ends in disaster. We are a mighty nation, but always, always the sea-road for our supplies. We should starve here in a month if that was stopped. Some day it will be—by some strategy. Tea is ready—let us forget lobster and eat again."
Hot-faced footmen had built a big fire on the shore. The couples came flocking back to eat and drink again. Some shyly radiant, their afternoon a golden memory; others laughing too loudly for happiness; others visibly bored.
"The most absolute dullard," Rose whispered to her cousin, Hilda Hamilton. "He only made two remarks the whole afternoon, and one was 'that shrimpin' was shockin'ly wet.' And the other that 'he did hope it wouldn't wain to spoil the bathin'.'"
"Oh, Rose, he didn't lisp," laughed Hilda.
"Well, he ought to, he's such an idiot. Yes, I'll take muffins, thank you. How clever toasting them."
"There was a fire," said the dull youth, sapiently; "it made it easier."
"Oh, it would." Miss Rose giggled over her muffin.
The opal tints grew wider on the sea as it creamed in over the sands; the murmur of the baby waves grew louder.
Marie was airing her triumphant return at the door of Esmé's pretty house. She had tripped into the bedroom, altered and arranged, peered into the cupboards.
"Ciel! but Madame has now an outfit," said Marie; "it is good that I return. Evidently Madame has an income."
Scott, the ousted one, waited stolidly for her wages, and grumbled in the kitchen, hinting spitefully that she might not receive them at once.
Marie settled and sang, and settled, poring over the heaped letters on Esmé's tables, raising her thin eyebrows at the gathering of bills.
"I wonder"—Marie laid down an urgent letter from a Bond Street firm—"where Madame went when she sent me away. I have always wondered," said Marie, tripping down the path of the little garden.
A young man strolling by stopped in amazement, listened to Marie's voluble explanations. A freckled youth, who kept a little hairdresser's shop, and hoped in time to keep fair Marie over it as part proprietress. Marie possessed schemes for moving westwards and becoming affluent. The youth's name was Henry Poore, his hobby photography.
"Tiens! they come, and you must go," said Marie, seeing the big motor humming to the door of the Blakeneys' house. "Ah! it is well that I came here, for there are many clothes and a fine wage, and voila! there is Monsieur le Capitaine. See, he stands with a thin mees."
Henry Poore looked down the road. "Seems I've seen him before," he said. "Sure I have."
"Laikely. Ze world is full of meetings," observed Marie. "He was soldier; he has now retire. Oh, Henri, I am happy. Nevair did I have so good a time as with this Madame. You shall come to do her hair for ze Court. You shall be great hairdresser. Allez vite, quick!"
Marie made an appointment, and Henry walked off. But the invisible lines of fate were closing round Esmé. She had taken up one herself when she re-employed Marie, who knew just a little too much.
Scott, dourly respectful, waited for her due.
"Four months, mem, if you please."
"Give it to her, Bertie. I am tired."
"But—I gave you the wages cheque each month, Esmé," Bertie said sharply. "Why did you not pay the woman?"
"I suppose I spent it on something else. Don't fuss over a few pounds. Give it to her and let her go. Tell her not to come to me for recommendations."
Esmé strolled off to give herself over to the deft brown hands, to be powdered, tinted into new beauty, to have her golden hair re-done.
"It is not the money. It is only a few pounds, but it is always the same thing," muttered Bertie to himself as he wrote the cheque, "always."
"Sure to be right, sir?" Scott permitted herself a little veiled insolence.
"Right? What do you mean, Scott?"
"Mrs Carteret's were not always, sir," snapped Scott, primly. "Several shops have had to apply again. Thank you, sir. Good-night."
The block of a fat cheque-book was looked at unhappily. The balance left was so small, and there was no more money due until Christmas. Bertie Carteret sighed drearily. Another lot of shares must go; long-suffering luck be trusted to replace them.
Esmé, in one of her gay moods, came down, dressed in filmy white, black velvet wound in her burnished hair, a glittering necklace at her throat. She chattered incessantly, hung about Bertie with one of her outbursts of affection.
Marie had given Madame ah, but a tiny thing for the nairves, a thing she had learnt of at Madame la Comtesse's and treasured the prescription. Marie had prescribed further, suggested massage, a sure cure for nervous ills.
Esmé made plans in her head; leapt from reckless despair to reckless hope. She spent in imagination the big allowance Bertie's uncle would give them; she saw herself "my lady." She felt clinging fingers in hers, saw baby faces in her house. She would brush away the effect of her own wicked folly; she would be happy and rich and contented.
So, with her thoughts leaping ahead, she frightened Bertie by talking of her plans; they comprised country houses, a yacht, hunters, jewels, new frocks.
"I'll have that sable coat altered. The Furrier Company will do it for a hundred pounds. I'm sick of it. We'll go to Tatts, Bertie, and buy you a couple of hunters."
"Out of what?" he asked gravely.
"Out of—futurity," Esmé laughed. "Estelle, don't look sensible; it worries me. Look here, children, I'm not well. I'm going over to Paris to see Legrand. That dull doctor's wife I met to-day says he can cure death itself. And then, when I am well—"
With flushed cheeks and shining eyes she perched on the arm of Bertie's chair, her fingers caressing his hair. "And then," she said, bending and whispering to him.
He flushed, but took her hot white fingers in his.
"Oh, it's for that," he said, in a low voice—"for that, Esmé."
"For that. Then I'll settle down—give up Society," she said, jumping up and running to the window. "Come, we'll go out and join the trippers. I wonder Denise has not sent for me to play bridge. No, we won't go out; ring up the Adderleys, Bertie. They'll always play.... It's too dull just walking out in the dark."