XIII
There came a day when Christina put her feet to the grimy pavement of the street and walked slowly but without assistance to Dr. Merville's car, borrowed through Beryl, for the afternoon.
It was a cold, clear day in January, the wind was in the east and the gutters of Walter Street were covered with a thin film of ice.
A momentous occasion, for in addition to other wonders, Christina was wearing her first hat! Evie had chosen and bought it. The woolen costume was one from Mrs. Colebrook's wash-tub. Ambrose had provided a gray squirrel coat. It had appeared at the last moment. But the hat was a joy. Christina had worn it in bed all the morning, sitting up with pillows behind her and a mirror in her hand.
"Lend me that powder-puff of yours, Evie," she said recklessly, "My skin is perfect. I admit it. But I can't appear before the curious eyes of the world wearing my own complexion. It wouldn't be decent."
"If you take my advice," suggested the wise Evie, "you'll put a dab of rouge on your cheeks. Nobody will know."
"I am no painted woman," said Christina, "I am poor but I am respectable. Ambrose would think I had a fever and send for the osteopath. No, a little powder. My eyes are sufficiently languorous without eyeblack, I think. It must be powder or nothing."
Ambrose did not accompany them, and Evie and Mrs. Colebrook were her attendants in the drive to Hampstead.
Beryl saw them; she had arranged with Ambrose and the chauffeur that the car should go past the house and she watched from behind a curtained window.
So that was Evie; it was the first time she had seen her—no, not the first time. She was the girl to whom Ronnie had been speaking that holiday morning when she had passed them in the park. She was very pretty and petite—the kind Ronnie liked. She lingered at the window long after they had passed, loath to face an unpleasant interview.
She knew it would be unpleasant; her father had been so anxious to please her at lunch; his nervousness was symptomatic. He wanted to have a little talk with her that afternoon, he said; she guessed the subject set for discussion.
Sitting before the drawing-room fire she was reading when he came in rubbing his hands, and wearing a cheerful smile which was wholly simulated.
"Ah, there you are, Beryl. Now we can have a chat. I get very little time nowadays."
He poked the fire vigorously and sat down. "Beryl—" he seemed at some loss for an opening, "I had a talk with Steppe the other day—we were talking about you."
"Yes?"
"Steppe is very fond of you—loves you," Dr. Merville cleared his throat. "Yes, he loves you, Beryl. A fine man, a little rough, perhaps, but a fine man and a very rich man."
"Yes?" said Beryl again and he grew more agitated.
"I don't know why you say 'Yes, yes,'" he said irritably, "a young girl doesn't as a rule hear such things without displaying some—well, some emotion. How do you feel about the matter?"
"About marrying Mr. Steppe? I suppose you mean that? I can't marry him: I don't wish to."
"I'm sure you would learn to love him, Beryl."
She shook her head. "Impossible. I'm sorry, father, especially if you wished me to marry him. But it is impossible."
The doctor stared gloomily into the fire. "You must do as you wish. I cannot conscientiously urge you to make any sacrifice—he is a rough sort, and I'm afraid he will take your refusal badly. I don't mind what he does—really. I've made a hash of things—it was madness ever to invest a penny. I had a hundred and fifty thousand when I came into this house. And now—!"
She listened with a cold feeling in her heart. "Do you mean—that you depend upon the good will of Mr. Steppe—that if you were to break your connection with him and his companies, your position would be affected—?"
He nodded. "I am afraid that is how matters stand," he said, "but I forbid you to take that into consideration." Yet he looked at her so eagerly, so wistfully, that she knew his lofty statements to be so many words by which he expressed principles, long since dead. The form of his vanished code showed dimly through the emptiness of his speech.
"I am a modern father—I believe that a girl's heart should go where it will. Girls do not marry men to save their families, except in melodrama, and fathers do not ask such a ghastly sacrifice. I should have been glad if you had thought kindly of Steppe. It would have made my course so much more smooth. However—" He got up, stooped to poke the fire again, hung the poker tidily on the iron and straightened himself.
"Let me think it over," she said, not looking at him. Not until he was out of the room did he feel uncomfortable.
She had been prepared for this development. Steppe had been a constant visitor to the house and his rare flowers filled the vases of every room except hers. And her father had hinted and hinted. That Dr. Merville was heavily in the debt of her suitor she could guess. Steppe had told her months before that he had to come to the rescue of the doctor. Only she had hoped that so crude an alternative would not be placed before her, though she knew that such arrangements were not altogether confined to the realms of melodrama. At least two friends of hers had married for a similar reason. A knightly millionaire bootmaker had married Lady Sylvia Frascommon and had settled the Earl of Farileigh's bills at a moment when that noble earl was dodging writs in bankruptcy. She could look at the matter more calmly because she had come to a dead end. There was nothing ahead, nothing. She did not count Ambrose Sault's love amongst the tangibilities of life. That belonged to herself. Steppe would marry that possession. It was as much of her, as hands and lips, except that it was beyond his enjoyment. In the midst of her examination, her father came in.
"There is one thing I forgot to say, dear—Ronnie, who is as fond of you as any of us, thinks that you ought to marry—he says he'll be glad to see you married to Steppe. I thought it was fine of Ronnie."
"Shut the door, father, please; there's a draught," said Beryl.
Dr. Merville returned to his study shaking his head. He couldn't understand Beryl.
So Ronnie approved! She sat, cheek in hand, elbow on knee, looking at the fire. Steppe did not seem so impossible after that. Ronnie! He would approve, of course. What terrors he must have endured when he discovered that Steppe was his rival! What mental agonies! An idea came to her.
She went down to the hall where the telephone was and gave his number.
"Hello—yes."
"Is that you, Ronnie?"
"Yes—is that you, Beryl?" his voice changed. She detected an anxious note. "How are you—I meant to come round yesterday. I haven't seen you for an age."
"Father says that you think I ought to marry Steppe."
There was an interval. "Did you hear what I said?" she asked.
"Yes—of course it is heartbreaking for me—I feel terrible about it all—but it is a good match, Beryl. He is one of the richest men in town—it is for your good, dear."
She nodded to the transmitter and her lips twitched. "I can't marry him without telling him, can I, Ronnie?" She heard his gasp.
"For God's sake, don't be so mad, Beryl! You're mad! What good would it do—it would break your father's heart—you don't want to do that, do you? It would be selfish and nothing good could come of it—"
She was smiling delightedly at her end of the wire, but this he could not know.
"I will think about it," she said.
"Beryl—Beryl—don't go away. You mustn't, you really mustn't—I'm not thinking about myself—it is you—your father. You won't do such a crazy thing, will you? Promise me you won't—I am entitled to some consideration."
"I'll think about it," she repeated and left him in a state of collapse.