CHAPTER XII
"Are you heartless?" he continued; "have you no pity for me?"
It was the next evening. They were sitting among the basket chairs and the dinner dresses in the garden, and there was no one inconveniently near. Lady Bletchworth had gone inside a few minutes before. A warm breeze bore strains of Chopin to them from the Kursaal; the little fountain plashed languidly, and a full moon had been assisting Conrad to deceive himself.
"I am not heartless," returned Mrs. Adaile, "I am sensible. And—there are a thousand reasons."
"For one thing?"
"For one thing.... I don't want romance—I want comedy. I want to laugh with you, my dear Con, not to be serious."
This was difficult to answer, for he could not offer to laugh at his grand passion. He sighed.
"Besides," she went on, "I couldn't make you happy. It isn't in my power—you don't really care for me. You are in love with a memory, not with me. I'm no longer the woman you fell in love with. I've changed. Really I didn't know how much I had changed till you came here, I must like you very much to want to talk to you—because you make me feel elderly, you do indeed."
"You're unjust," he exclaimed—and he was genuinely distressed. "Not care for you? You don't believe it, you can't believe that. I swear to you——"
"No, don't," she said. "I can imagine all you would say. Haven't I listened to you? Haven't I even ... tried to make illusions for myself? You talk of what you felt for me, not of what you feel. You don't know it, but you rave to me about what I was, not about what I am. You remember the hat and the frock I had on twenty years ago—can you tell me what I wore last night?"
"Is such constancy nothing?" he cried hastily.
"It would be irresistible," she said, "if you could find the girl that you've been constant to. But she doesn't live, Con—she's gone. I am such a different person from the girl you've looked for that—that I've even felt a tiny bit jealous sometimes of your rhapsodies to me about her. Well? I'm being quite frank with you, you see. It's pathetic, I think. There have been moments when I've listened to you and felt a little pained because you seemed to forget all about me.... I am hurting you?"
"You hurt me," said Conrad, "because for the first time I realise you are different from the girl I've looked for. Till now I've felt that I was with her again."
"That's nice of you, but it isn't true. Oh, I like you for saying it, of course.... If you had felt it really——"
"Go on."
"No, what for? I should only make you unhappier."
"You want comedy?" he demurred; "you have said the saddest things a woman ever said to me!"
She raised a white shoulder—with a laugh; "I never get what I want!"
"It should have taught you to feel for me, but you are not 'wondrous kind.'"
"Oh, I am more to be pitied than you are! What have I got in my life? Friends? Yes—to play bridge with. My husband? He delivers speeches on local option, and climbs mountains. Both make me deadly tired. I used to go in for music—'God save the King' is the only tune he knows when he hears it, and he only knows that because the men take their hats off. I was interested in my house at the beginning—after you've quarrelled in your house every day for years it doesn't absorb you to make the mantelpiece look pretty. I wanted a child—well, my sister has seven! ... Voilà my autobiography up to date."
"There is to-morrow," said Conrad, moved.
"To-morrow you must give me the comedy," she smiled; "and the morning after, I go to the Highlands—and big men will shoot little birds, and think it's 'sport.' Did you ever see a sparrow die? I watched one once. It was human. Like a child! ... Come on, come on, let's go out!"
And behold another woman! She had been wise, and dejected him; now she was unwise, to make amends. Behold a myriad women in one. Before half an hour had passed she had told him her philosophy was a puff ball, that she had prated reason only to be reasoned with. And she told him so without a word about it—said so by the modulation of her voice while they talked trifles.
And Conrad? Conrad had been scrambling to the point of friendship, and he slipped back to folly. Conrad strove to forget that discomfiting phrase, "You are in love with a memory, not with me." It made the folly so difficult.
He could not succeed in forgetting it. It was in his mind next day, coldly a fact. Yes, he was making love to Mrs. Adaile because she was Mrs. Adaile, not because she was a charming woman. He knew that if they hadn't met before he came to Ostend, he might have admired her, tried to know her, grown to like her, but that he would never have said to her what he had said. Nor wished to say it.
Yet there was the regnant truth that it was she. She had the fascination of sharing with him his dearest, his sweetest remembrances; the radiance of the past still tinged her—in her keeping lay the wonder of his youth.
So they ate Neapolitan ices in the morning, and she brought down the doyley in the afternoon, and they listened to Chopin again in the evening.
It was the last evening. The Bletchworths and she were leaving early on the morrow, and he was unlikely to be alone with her again before she went.
"I wish you weren't going," he said. "How horribly I shall miss you! I sha'n't stop here. Why aren't you going to Homburg, instead of to people in Scotland? Then we might have met again."
"Are you going to Homburg to be 'cured'?"
"I think I shall go there. Or to Antwerp. Yes, I shall go to Antwerp first. I was there when I was a boy. I was happy in Antwerp."
"How funny you are," she said involuntarily.
"I've never found anyone much entertained by me. How?"
"You'll go to Antwerp, of all places in the world, because you liked it when you were a boy! Antwerp will disappoint you—too."
"You could always stab deep with a monosyllable," he said, "but you used to have more mercy."
"I'm sorry I have deteriorated," said the lady rather stiffly.
She leant back in her chair, and a minute passed in silence. She gave her attention to the orchestra, tapping time with the tip of a shoe.
"Does it amuse you to say cruel things to me?" asked Conrad. "If it does, by all means say what you like."
"I don't understand you." She drooped disdainful eyelids.
"What you said was unworthy of you. You know it was."
"I really forget what I did say. Please talk about something else. What is it they are playing?"
They were playing Cavalleria now, so he scorned to reply to this otherwise than by a look.
"I asked you a question," she said in tones of ice.
"I beg your pardon," he answered hastily. "They are playing Cavalleria Rusticana. An opera. Written by a young Italian. His name is Mascagni."
"You are rude!" she exclaimed.
"I am human, Joan. You hurt me!"
Then her sister and Bletchworth reappeared. "Perhaps you know a good hotel?" Conrad was saying.
"An hotel where?" inquired Lady Bletchworth.
"Mr. Warrener is going to Homburg; I tell him everybody says it's deadly dull there this year," murmured Mrs. Adaile.
It was deadly dull in Ostend, too, during the next hour. Both women were rather quiet, and Bletchworth was exceptionally wearisome. But for the fact that it was the farewell evening Conrad would have seen friends among the company and gone to greet them.
However, at last the orchestra finished, and they all got up. A leisurely crowd was flocking to the exit, and—perhaps it was the crowd, perhaps it was Lady Bletchworth—Conrad and Mrs. Adaile were separated from the others for satisfactory seconds.
"Won't you forgive me?" he whispered.
Even a crowd has merits—her hand rested on his arm an instant.
"It must be fate," he said; "I always offend you just when we're going to part. Do you remember?"
She nodded. "I remember." Her glance was very pretty in the moonshine.
"This won't be our last talk together?" he begged. "What are you going to do when we go in?"
"I suppose we shall sit in the garden."
"But—everybody?"
"I expect so.... Don't let's keep behind! Walk with Lily." She addressed her brother-in-law, and Conrad sauntered beside Lady Bletchworth.
The windows of the Villa this, and the Villa that, were thrown wide behind the mass of blooms. In the crimson dusk of lamp-shades there was the glint of a white gown, the glow of a cigarette point among cushions, a bubble of laughter. Every minute a dim interior flashed to brightness—someone returned and switched on the light, a woman took off her hat before the mirror. Through one window came the jingle of money on a card table; through another shouts—Paulette Fleury was singing to friends one of the songs that she had not sung at the Empire in London. To the left, the track of moonlight on the sea kept pace with Conrad.
It was more agreeable in the garden than on the terrace at the onset. Already it had an air of intimacy, the artificial enclosure, with its tesselated paving, and its affectation of rusticity; already he was on good terms with it. Curiously enough, such hotel gardens, misnamed as they are, have a knack of making a visitor feel at home, of endearing themselves to him, more quickly than acres of lawns and elms.
Lady Bletchworth wanted a brandy-and-soda, and Conrad had one, too; Mrs. Adaile and Bletchworth drank champagne. Presently they referred to the shooting-box, to the people they expected to see there. Almost for the first time Conrad was blankly sensible of inhabiting a different sphere; he hoped they wouldn't ask him if he knew any of the people they were mentioning. He got very near to his youth in that moment; there was a revival of his boyhood's dumb constraint.... How odd it was! they were all sitting together like this, and after to-night he was never likely to meet her. Front doors between them. 'Gina, of course, might be useful; but how stupid of him not to have got into the right set in town when he came back from the Colony! He supposed it wouldn't have been difficult, with the money. Londoners boasted that everything the world yielded was to be bought in London, and it was true—even to dignities and reputations.
"Well, I am forced to admit that I don't know what women go to the moors for," said Bletchworth. "You don't take the sport seriously, and therefore you are out of place. What do you say, Mr. Warrener?"
"Well, I can hardly say anything," owned Conrad; "I don't go to the moors."
"But if you did, you wouldn't prefer a grouse to a woman, I'm sure?" asked Lady Bletchworth.
"A man does not go to the moors to talk to women," insisted her husband. "That is my point. Women always want to flirt just as the birds are rising. Women are very desirable at a dance, but when it comes to birds, or it comes to cricket, when it comes to anything important, I say, reluctantly, they can't be serious. That is my point—you don't take the thing seriously. Now, at the Eton and Harrow, were you earnest about it; had you got the matter at heart? No, no; all you wanted to do was to walk about, and to have lunch."
"A lot of boys playing ball!" she said. "And then they take up all the lawn besides. So selfish of them!"
"Ah!" said Bletchworth warningly, "that is the tone that is going to do the harm, that is the tone we have to guard against. What has made us what we are? What has given England the place she holds? I protest, I protest absolutely against irresponsible—er—comment. The foreign ideas that are creeping into papers that have always had my—er—approval will sap the country's manhood if we don't make a stand. Joan—I am sure Joan agrees with me?"
She was leaning back absently, trifling with a porte-bonheur on her wrist; the blue fire of the diamonds was ablaze. It caught Conrad's glance; from her wrist his gaze travelled to her eyes. They told him, "I'm so bored."
"Yes, indeed," she assented, "you're quite right." It would have been evident to anyone but Bletchworth that she had not heard what he said.
There were fewer people in the garden by this time. In the knowledge that the evening was nearly over, a wave of sentiment stirred Conrad. Even her message of comprehension did nothing to subdue his annoyance. What likelihood remained of a tête-à-tête? The evening from first to last had been wasted in stupidities.
Presently another group went inside, presently there was no one left but themselves. Finally Lady Bletchworth yawned. He wished fervently that she had yawned an hour ago.
"I think it's time we all went to bed," she said. "You've laid down the law quite enough, Charlie. Shall we see you in the morning, Mr. Warrener?"
"Oh yes," he said, "of course. What time is the boat?"
"I don't know—ten something, isn't it? Well, I'll say 'good night.' I wish we were staying on, really I do—I shall have a racking headache to-morrow evening. Are you ready, Joan?"
"Quite," said Mrs. Adaile; "I have a headache now."
He was hopeless until she let him see her slip the porte-bonheur into her chair before she rose.
"Good night, Mr. Warrener."
"Good night, Mrs. Adaile," he said.
When he was alone he sat down again, and waited for her return; her manoeuvre might fail, someone return with her—the bracelet must be lying where she had "dropped" it.
More than five minutes crept by before a step sounded. He turned eagerly, and with dismay beheld Lord Armoury approaching. The intruder gaped at the view, and stood hesitating, with his hands in his pockets. It was an instant of the keenest suspense. Would he withdraw? No, he lounged forward. He threw himself into the very chair, and stretched his legs across another.
Conrad muttered an anathema on him.
"Eh?" said Lord Armoury.
"I didn't speak," said Conrad frigidly.
The young man took out a cigarette, and opened his match-box. It was empty.
"Got a light?" he inquired.
"I'm sorry I haven't," said Conrad, momentarily encouraged.
"Rotten show!" said the Earl; "where's a waiter?" He contemplated his cigarette with a semi-intoxicated frown, and transferred his feet to the table. It was apparent that he meant to stop although he could not smoke. With his change of position he was liable to come in contact with the bracelet, and Conrad watched him nervously, but he did not seem to be discommoded by it.
"Seen Paulette?" he asked.
"No." The "no" of a man who is not to be drawn into conversation.
"Pauly's a bit of all right," affirmed the Earl, undeterred. "I don't pretend to be up to all the patter, but—wot ho!"
Speechlessly Conrad hoped the lady wouldn't come back yet.
"Three hundred a week she refused for a return engagement at the Empire—told me so herself to-night. That's Pauly! Got the hump. What's three hundred to Pauly? I told 'em how she'd catch on before she went over. Don't I know?" He winked profoundly. "Look here, you'll see an artist in October at the Syndicate halls, that's—wot ho! She's going to knock 'em. Between ourselves she's got some new 'business,' that—well, it's great! Never been tried. I saw her when she was doing the last turn at the South London. I said to George, 'Cocky, that's a winner!' Robey couldn't see it. I saw it; I can put my finger on the talent every time. She's going to make Marie sit up, my boy—she's another Marie Lloyd. Don't I know? I've got the judgment. I can spot 'em with one peeper! ... Isn't there a waiter in this damned hotel? I could do with a tiddley. Where's a bell?"
"It's no use ringing," said Conrad, "nobody ever comes. It wants someone to go in and stir them up."
But now Mrs. Adaile reappeared.
"Oh!" she murmured. And then, "I've dropped a bracelet somewhere; I came down to look for it. Good evening, Lord Armoury."
"A bracelet?" echoed Conrad with concern.
"Good evening, Mrs. Adaile—a bracelet? Crumbs!" said Armoury.
"Yes, isn't it a nuisance! I don't know how I could have lost it—I suppose the clasp was loose. I had it on out here."
"Let me help you," said Conrad. In an undertone he added, "Don't find it yet. Let's look further off. Oh my dearest, it was so sweet of you! I'm in such a rage, I'm so wretched."
"Where were you sitting, Mrs. Adaile?" asked Armoury, peering about.
"Over here, over there, I don't know," she said hurriedly.... "Is it still in the chair?" she whispered.
"Yes," whispered Conrad. "Are you sorry you're going from me?"
"A little."
"To leave you like this," he sighed, "it's awful. Joan——"
"Well?"
"Let me come to your room to say 'good-bye.'"
She started.
"Hallo! Have you got it?" exclaimed Armoury.
"No," she said, "I—I thought I had."
"Joan?"
"I daren't," she faltered. "My maid——"
"Come and say 'good-bye' to me, then. Do!"
"Find it!" she said agitatedly—"he'll guess."
"What's that?" cried Conrad. "Here it is—why, in one of our chairs! May I—?" He fastened the bracelet on her wrist. "Make me happy. Come to me," he begged. "Will you? Number seventeen."
Her fingers touched his hand.
"I'm so immensely grateful to you both," she said serenely.
"Lucky for her we were here!" the intruder remarked when she had gone. "One of the servants might have pinched it by the morning."
"Yes, I suppose it was as well we were here," said Conrad amiably. "If it hadn't been for you, I should have turned in before this." He dropped back into his seat, resigning himself to tedium a little longer.
He lolled there discreetly, making civil responses—and gradually he realised that Flossie Coburg's son was not wholly to be blamed for the tedium; he recognised that there was a dulness of his own spirit. While he countenanced the garrulity of a fool, his thoughts were with scenes of twenty years before, and sadly the man strove to revive in his heart the idolatry and illusions of the boy. Oh, for the enchantment of the summer when he had called her "Mrs. Adaile!" ... If he could only keep remembering it was the same woman! But never had she seemed so different to him as in these minutes—never had he desired so little as now when she had promised all.
The ground floor of the hotel was partially dark when he crossed it; a purposeless waiter hovered in obscurity. Upstairs, along the passage, the tan and black rows of boots, shapely on boot-trees, indicated that most of the visitors had retired. A drowsy lady's-maid put forth an expectant face, and withdrew it wearily. Conrad felt about the wall for the electric button, which seemed always in a different spot, and found it. Then he closed his door as completely as was possible without turning the knob.
As he put down his watch he saw that it was late, but he knew that it was not yet late enough, and his movements were leisurely. He wanted a cigarette—the more because he had deprived himself of one outside by saying that he had no match, but he was reluctant to give the odour of tobacco to the room. A superfluous grace, perhaps, now that most women smoked? Still he was reluctant. He threw down his cigarette-case, too, and the rest of the things that had been in his pockets....
He looked at himself ruminatingly in the mirror, and brushed his moustache.
One of the lights hung above the pillow—it was convenient to read by. Presently it occurred to him that nearly two acts of "Le Marquis de Priola" remained to divert him. He put forth his arm for it, and, stretching, reached it. He turned the leaves.... Une dame viendra de deux à trois. Ah yes, this was as far as he had read.
The effort to give his attention to the play grew gradually less. Mournfulness faded, and in the next scene his interest was alert. Once he laughed. His thoughts were no longer with the boy who had lain wakeful through a night just to hear her footstep in the hall.
The wind was rising, and intermittently it tricked and irritated him. The blustering wind, and the chiming of a clock made the only sounds.
Again the clock rang out. This time he counted the strokes with annoyance. He yawned. His interest was wandering from the play now. It began to seem to him that Priola talked too much. What was keeping her—had she repented her promise? He tossed the book aside, and lay watching the door.
After he had watched it for nearly half-an-hour it was gently opened, and swiftly closed, and Mrs. Adaile stood on the threshold. She paused there diffidently, with downcast eyes. She wore a long clinging robe of crêpe de chine, veiled partly by a stole of Venetian point. The sleeves of the deep toned lace, dividing at the shoulders, drooped from her like wings. One daring touch of colour, the flame of nasturtium, at her breast threw into dazzling relief the gleaming whiteness of her skin, the burnished gold of her hair. She paused, awaiting doubtless the words of welcome, of encouragement, that would vanquish her timidity. But Conrad slept. A respiration too loud to be thought rapture, and too faint to be called a snore, smote the lady's hearing. Startled, she looked up; forked lightning flashed at him from her indignant eyes. But, tranquil, Conrad slept.
What an offence! Wasn't it enough to enrage the sweetest of women? Put yourself—I mean it was unpardonable!
For a second she seemed about to escape even more surreptitiously than she had entered; and then a smile, half sad, half whimsical, twitched her lips. A sense of humour—how much it spares us, how far it goes in life! A little pathetic that often a sense of humour wins affection, and the noble qualities get nothing but a dull respect. She looked at a pencil-case on the table, and stood tempted, her fingers at her mouth. Dared she do it! She would not have roused him for a coronet—and the creak of a board, even the scratching of the lead, might be fatal. She wavered. She moved towards the pencil slowly, stealthily, inch by inch.
The table was gained. There was nothing to write on. A paper-covered volume lay to her hand; with infinite precaution she tore the title-page. Tremulously she scribbled, holding her breath. Where to leave the message, where to put it so that it couldn't be overlooked? Again she hesitated. Conrad slept sound, a glance assured her of it. Again she ventured. An instant her gaze dwelt upon him, still with that smile half mirthful and half melancholy on her face. She nodded, wide-eyed—and on the tips of her toes crept out unheard, unseen.
When Conrad woke, a servant was admitting the sunshine through the window; his coffee steamed by his side. As he sat up—and almost before memory thudded in him—his view met the front page of "Le Marquis de Priola" pinned to the bed-curtain. He rolled towards it haggardly. On it was written:—
"Dreamer! Good-bye. There is no way back to Rouen."