Tenterhooks

by Ada Leverson

CHAPTER XXIX

Intellectual Sympathy

'What are you going to wear tonight, Edith?'

'Oh; anything!'

'Don't say anything. I don't wish you to wear anything. I'm anxious you should look your best, really nice, especially as we haven't been to the Mitchells' for so long. Wear your new blue dress.'

'Very well.'

Bruce got up and walked across the room and looked in the glass.

'Certainly, I'm a bit sunburnt,' he remarked thoughtfully. 'But it doesn't suit me badly, not really badly; does it?'

'Not at all.'

'Edith.'

'Yes?'

'If I've spoken about it once, I've spoken about it forty times. This ink-bottle is too full.'

'I'll see about it.'

'Don't let me have to speak about it again, will you? I wonder who will be at the Mitchells' tonight?'

'Oh, I suppose there'll be the new person—the woman with the dramatic contralto foghorn voice; and the usual people: Mr Cricker, Lady Everard, Miss Mooney—'

'Miss Mooney! I hope not! I can't stand that woman. I think she's absurd; she's a mass of affectation and prudishness. And—Edith!'

'Yes?'

'I don't want to interfere between mother and daughter—I know you're perfectly capable and thoroughly well suited to bringing up a girl, but I really do think you're encouraging Dilly in too great extravagance.'

'Oh! In what way?'

'I found her making a pinafore for her doll out of a lace flounce of real old Venetian lace. Dilly said she found it on the floor. 'On the floor, indeed,' I said to her. 'You mustn't use real lace!' She said, 'Why not? It's a real doll!' Lately Dilly's got a way of answering back that I don't like at all. Speak to her about it, will you, Edith?'

'Oh yes, of course I will.'

'I'm afraid my mother spoils them. However, Archie will be going to school soon. Of course it isn't for me to interfere. I have always made a point of letting you do exactly as you like about the children, haven't I, Edith? But I'm beginning to think, really, Dilly ought to have another gov—' He stopped, looking self-conscious.

'Oh, she's only five, quite a baby,' said Edith. 'I daresay I can manage her for the present. Leave it to me.'

* * * * *

Since his return, Edith had never once referred to Bruce's sea-voyage. Once or twice he had thanked her with real gratitude, and even remorse, for the line she had taken, but her one revenge had been to change the subject immediately. If Bruce wished to discuss the elopement that she had so laboriously concealed, he would have to go elsewhere.

* * * * *

A brilliantly coloured version, glittering with success and lurid with melodrama, had been given (greatly against the hearer's will) to Goldthorpe at the club. One of the most annoying things to Bruce was that he was perfectly convinced, when he was confessing the exact truth, that Goldthorpe didn't believe a word of it.

It was unfortunate, too, for Bruce, that he felt it incumbent on him to keep it from Vincy; and not to speak of the affair at all was a real sacrifice on Vincy's part, also. For they would both have enjoyed discussing it, while Goldthorpe, the only human being in whom Bruce ever really confided, was not only bored but incredulous. He considered Bruce not only tedious to the verge of imbecility, but unreliable beyond the pardonable point of inaccuracy. In fact, Bruce was his ideal of the most wearisome of liars and the most untruthful of bores; and here was poor Vincy dying to hear all about his old friend, Mavis (he never knew even whether she had mentioned his name), ready to revel, with his peculiar humour, in every detail of the strange romance, particularly to enjoy her sudden desertion of Bruce for an unmarried commercial traveller who had fallen in love with her on board.—And yet, it had to be withheld! Bruce felt it would be disloyal, and he had the decency to be ashamed to speak of his escapade to an intimate friend of his wife.

* * * * *

Bruce complained very much of the dullness of the early autumn in London without Aylmer. This sudden mania for long journeys on Aylmer's part was a most annoying hobby. He would never get such a pleasant friend as Aylmer again. Aylmer was his hero.

'Why do you think he's gone away?' he rather irritatingly persisted.

'I haven't the slightest idea.'

'Do you know, Edith, it has sometimes occurred to me that if—that, well—well, you know what I mean—if things had turned out differently, and you had done as I asked you—'

'Well?'

'Why, I have a sort of idea,' he looked away, 'that Aylmer might—well, might have proposed to you!'

'Oh! What an extraordinary idea!'

'But he never did show any sign whatever, I suppose of—well, of—being more interested in you than he ought to have been?'

'Good heavens, no!'

'Oh, of course, I know that—you're not his style. You liked him very much, didn't you, Edith?…'

'I like him very much now.'

'However, I doubt if you ever quite appreciated him. He's so full of ability; such an intellectual chap! Aylmer is more a man's man. I miss him, of course. He was a very great friend of mine. And he didn't ever at all, in the least—seem to—'

'Seem to what?'

'It would have been a very unfair advantage to take of my absence if he had,' continued Bruce.

'Oh!'

'But he was incapable of it, of course.'

'Of course.'

'He never showed any special interest, then, beyond—'

'Never.'

'I was right, I suppose, as usual. You never appreciated him; he was not the sort of man a woman would appreciate … But he's a great loss to me, Edith. I need a man who can understand—Intellectual sympathy—'

* * * * *

'Mr Vincy!' announced the servant.

Vincy had not lost his extraordinary gift for turning up at the right moment. He was more welcome than ever now.