CHAPTER X
MISS LERMONTOF'S ADVICE
As Diana entered the somewhat dingy hall at 34 Brutton Square on her return from visiting Adrienne, the first person she encountered was Olga Lermontof. She still retained her dislike of the accompanist and was preparing to pass by with a casual remark upon the coldness of the weather, when something in the Russian's pale, fatigued face arrested her.
"How frightfully tired you look!" she exclaimed, pausing on the staircase as the two made their way up together.
"I am, rather," returned Miss Lermontof indifferently. "I've been playing accompaniments all afternoon, and I've had no tea."
Diana hesitated an instant, then she said impulsively—"Oh, do come into my room and let me make you a cup."
Olga Lermontof regarded her with a faint surprise.
"Thanks," she said in her abrupt way. "I will."
A cheerful little fire was burning in the grate, and the room presented a very comfortable and home-like appearance, for Diana had added a couple of easy-chairs and several Liberty cushions to its somewhat sparse furniture. A heavy curtain, hung in front of the door to exclude draughts, gave an additional cosy touch, and fresh flowers adorned both chimney-piece and table.
Olga Lermontof let her long, lithe figure down into one of the easy-chairs with a sigh of satisfaction, while Diana set the kettle on the fire to boil, and produced from the depths of a cupboard a canister of tea and a tin of attractive-looking biscuits.
"I often make my own tea up here," she observed. "I detest having it in that great barrack of a dining-room downstairs. The bread-and-butter is always so thick—like doorsteps!—and the cake is very emphatically of the 'plain, home-made' variety."
Olga nodded.
"You look very comfortable here," she replied. "If you saw my tiny bandbox of a room on the fourth floor you'd realise what a sybarite you are."
Diana wondered a little why Olga Lermontof should need to economise by having such a small room and one so high up. She was invariably well-dressed—Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats and expensive shoes—and she had not in the least the air of a woman who is accustomed to small means.
Almost as though she had uttered her thought aloud, Miss Lermontof replied to it, smiling rather satirically.
"You're thinking I don't look the part? It's true I haven't always been so poor as I am now. But a lot of my money is invested in Ru—abroad, and owing to—to various things"—she stammered a little—"I can't get hold of it just at present, so I'm dependent on what I make. And an accompanist doesn't earn a fortune, you know. But I can't quite forego pretty clothes—I wasn't brought up that way. So I economise over my room."
Diana was rather touched by the little confidence; somehow she didn't fancy the other had found it very easy to make, and she liked her all the better for it.
"No," she agreed, as she poured out two steaming cups of tea. "I suppose accompanying doesn't pay as well as some other things—the stage, for example. I should think Adrienne de Gervais makes plenty of money."
"She has private means, I believe," returned Miss Lermontof. "But, of course, she gets an enormous salary."
She was drinking her tea appreciatively, and a little colour had crept into her cheeks, although the shadows still lay heavily beneath her light-green eyes. They were of a curious translucent green, the more noticeable against the contrasting darkness of her hair and brows; they reminded one of the colour of Chinese jade.
"I've just been to tea with Miss de Gervais," volunteered Diana, after a pause.
A swift look of surprise crossed Olga Lermontof's face.
"I didn't know you had met her," she said slowly.
"Yes, we met at Signor Baroni's the other day. She came in during my lesson. I believe I told you she had taken a house at Crailing, so that at home we are neighbours, you see."
"Miss Lermontof consumed a biscuit in silence. Then she said abruptly:—
"Miss Quentin, I know you don't like me, but—well, I have an odd sort of wish to do you a good turn. You had better have nothing to do with Adrienne de Gervais."
Diana stared at her in undisguised amazement, the quick colour rushing into her face as it always did when she was startled or surprised.
"But—but why?" she stammered.
"I can't tell you why. Only take my advice and leave her alone."
"But I thought her delightful," protested Diana. "And"—wistfully—"I haven't many friends in London."
"Miss de Gervais isn't quite all she seems. And your art should be your friend—you don't need any other."
Diana laughed.
"You talk like old Baroni himself! But indeed I do want friends—I haven't nearly reached the stage when art can take the place of nice human people."
Miss Lermontof regarded her dispassionately.
"That's only because you're young—horribly young and warm-hearted."
"You talk as if you yourself were a near relation of
Methuselah!"—laughing.
"I'm thirty-five," returned Olga, "And that's old enough to know that nine-tenths of your 'nice human people' are self-seeking vampires living on the generosity of the other tenth. Besides, you have only to wait till you come out professionally and you can have as many so-called friends as you choose. You'll scarcely need to lift your little finger and they'll come flocking round you. I don't think"— looking at her speculatively—"that you've any conception what your voice is going to do for you. You see, it isn't just an ordinary good voice—it's one of the exceptional voices that are only vouchsafed once or twice in a century."
"Still, I think I should like to have a few friends—now. My friend,
I mean—not just the friends of my voice!"—with a smile.
"Well, don't include Miss de Gervais in the number—or Max Errington either."
She watched Diana's sudden flush, and shrugging her shoulders, added sardonically:—
"I suppose, however, it's useless to try and stop a marble rolling down hill. . . . Well, later on, remember that I warned you."
Diana stared into the fire for a moment in silence. Then she asked with apparent irrelevance:—
"Is Mr. Errington married?"
"He is not." Diana's heart suddenly sang within her.
"Nor," continued Miss Lermontof keenly, "is there any likelihood of his ever marrying."
The song broke off abruptly.
"I should have thought," said Diana slowly, "that he was just the kind of man who would marry. He is"—with a little effort—"very delightful."
Miss Lermontof got up to go.
"You have a saying in England: All is not gold that glitters. It is very good sense," she observed.
"Do you mean"—Diana's eyes were suddenly apprehensive—"do you mean that he has done anything wrong—dishonourable?"
"I think," replied Olga Lermontof incisively, "that it would be very dishonourable of him if he tried to—to make you care for him."
She moved towards the door as she spoke, and Diana followed her.
"But why—why do you tell me this?" she faltered.
The Russian's queer green eyes held an odd expression as she answered:—
"Perhaps it's because I like you very much better than you do me. You're one of the few genuine warm-hearted people I've met—and I don't want you to be unhappy. Good-bye," she added carelessly, "thank you for my tea."
The door closed behind her, and Diana, returning to her seat by the fire, sat staring into the flames, puzzling over what she had heard.
Miss Lermontof's curious warning had frightened her a little. She apparently possessed some intimate knowledge of the affairs both of Max Errington and Adrienne de Gervais, and what she knew did not appear to be very favourable to either of them.
Diana had intuitively felt from the very beginning of her acquaintance with Errington that there was something secret, something hidden, about him, and in a way this had added to her interest in him. It had seized hold of her imagination, kept him vividly before her mind as nothing else could have done, and now Olga Lermontof's strange hints and innuendos gave a fresh fillip to her desire to know in what way Max Errington differed from his fellows.
"It would be dishonourable of him to make you care," Miss Lermontof had said.
The words seemed to ring in Diana's ears, and side by side with them, as though to add a substance of reality, came the memory of Errington's own bitter exclamation: "I forgot that I'm a man barred out from all that makes life worth living!"
She felt as though she had drawn near some invisible web, of which every now and then a single filament brushed against her—almost impalpable, yet touching her with the fleetest and lightest of contacts.
During the weeks that followed, Diana became more or less an intimate at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street. The actress seemed to have taken a great fancy to her, and although she was several years Diana's senior, the difference in age formed no appreciable stumbling-block to the growth of the friendship between them.
On her part, Diana regarded Adrienne with the enthusiastic devotion which an older woman—more especially if she happens to be very beautiful and occupying a somewhat unique position—frequently inspires in one younger than herself, and Olga Lermontof's grave warning might just as well have been uttered to the empty air. Diana's warm-hearted, spontaneous nature swept it aside with an almost passionate loyalty and belief in her new-found friend.
Once Miss Lermontof had referred to it rather disagreeably.
"So you've decided to make a friend of Miss de Gervais after all?" she said.
"Yes. And I think you've misjudged her utterly," Diana warmly assured her. "Of course," she added, sensitively afraid that the other might misconstrue her meaning, "I know you believed what you were saying, and that you only said it out of kindness to me. But you were mistaken—really you were."
"Humph!" The Russian's eyes narrowed until they looked like two slits of green fire. "Humph! I was wrong, was I? Nevertheless, I'm perfectly sure that Adrienne de Gervais' past is a closed book to you—although you call yourself her friend!"
Diana turned away without reply. It was true—Olga Lermontof had laid a finger on the weak spot in her friendship with Adrienne. The latter never talked to her of her past life; their mutual attachment was built solely around the present, and if by chance any question of Diana's accidentally probed into the past, it was adroitly parried. Even of Adrienne's nationality she was in ignorance, merely understanding, along with the rest of the world, that she was of French extraction. This assumption had probably been founded in the first instance upon her name, and Adrienne never troubled either to confirm or contradict it.
Mrs. Adams, her companion-chaperon, always made Diana especially welcome at the house in Somervell Street.
"You must come again soon, my dear," she would say cordially. "Adrienne makes few friends—and your visits are such a relaxation to her. The life she leads is rather a strain, you know."
At times Diana noticed a curious aloofness in her friend, as though her professional success occupied a position of relatively small importance in her estimation, and once she had commented on it half jokingly.
"You don't seem to value your laurels one bit," she had said, as Adrienne contemptuously tossed aside a newspaper containing a eulogy of her claims to distinction which most actresses would have carefully cut out and pasted into their book of critiques.
"Fame?" Adrienne had answered. "What is it? Merely the bubble of a day."
"Well," returned Diana, laughing, "it's the aim and object of a good many people's lives. It's the bubble I'm in pursuit of, and if I obtain one half the recognition you have had, I shall be very content."
Adrienne regarded her musingly.
"You will be famous when the name of Adrienne de Gervais is known no longer," she said at last.
Diana stared at her in surprise.
"But why? Even if I should succeed, within the next few years, you will still be Adrienne de Gervais, the famous actress."
Adrienne smiled across at her.
"Ah, I cannot tell you why," she said lightly. "But—I think it will be like that."
Her eyes gazed dreamily into space, as though she perceived some vision of the future, but whether that future were of rose and gold or only of a dull grey, Diana could not tell.
Of Max Errington she saw very little. It seemed as though he were determined to avoid her, for she frequently saw him leaving Adrienne's house on a day when she was expected there—hurrying away just as she herself was approaching from the opposite end of the street.
Only once or twice, when she had chanced to pay an unexpected visit, had he come in and found her there. On these occasions his manner had been studiously cold and indifferent, and any effort on her part towards establishing a more friendly footing had been invariably checked by some cruelly ironical remark, which had brought the blood to her cheeks and, almost, the tears to her eyes. She reflected grimly that Olga Lermontof's warning words had proved decidedly superfluous.
Meanwhile, she had struck up a friendship with Errington's private secretary, a young man of the name of Jerry Leigh, who was a frequent visitor at Adrienne's house. Jerry was, in truth, the sort of person with whom it was impossible to be otherwise than friendly. He was of a delightful ugliness, twenty-five years of age, penniless except for the salary he received from Errington, and he possessed a talent for friendship much as other folk possess a talent for music or art or dancing.
Diana's first meeting with him had occurred quite by chance. Both Adrienne and Mrs. Adams happened to be out one afternoon when she called, and she was awaiting their return when the door of the drawing-room suddenly opened to admit a remarkably plain young man, who, on seeing her ensconced in one of the big arm-chairs, stood hesitating as though undecided whether to remain or to take refuge in instant flight.
Adrienne had talked so much about Jerry—of whom she was exceedingly fond—and had so often described his charming ugliness to Diana that the latter was in no doubt at all as to whom the newcomer might be.
She nodded to him reassuringly.
"Don't run away," she said calmly, "I don't bite."
The young man promptly closed the door and advanced into the room.
"Don't you?" he said in relieved tones. "Thank you for telling me.
One never knows."
"If you've come to see Miss de Gervais, I'm afraid you can't at present, as she's out," pursued Diana. "I'm waiting for her."
"Then we can wait together," returned Mr. Leigh, with an engaging smile. "It will be much more amusing than waiting in solitude, won't it?"
"That I can't tell you—yet," replied Diana demurely.
"I'll ask you again in half an hour," he returned undaunted. "I'm
Leigh, you know. Jerry Leigh, Errington's secretary."
"I suppose, then, you're a very busy person?"
"Well, pretty much so in the mornings and sometimes up till late at night, but Errington's a rattling good 'boss' and very often gives me an 'afternoon out.' That's why I'm here now. I'm off duty and Miss de Gervais told me I might come to tea whenever I'm free. You see"—confidentially—"I've very few friends in London."
"Same here," responded Diana shortly.
"No, not really?"—with obvious satisfaction. "Then we ought to pal up together, oughtn't we?"
"Don't you want my credentials?" asked Diana, smiling,
"Lord, no! One has only to look at you."
Diana laughed outright.
"That's quite the nicest compliment I've ever received, Mr. Leigh," she said.
(It was odd that while Errington always made her feel rather small and depressingly young, with Jerry Leigh she felt herself to be quite a woman of the world.)
"It isn't a compliment," protested Jerry stoutly. "It's just the plain, unvarnished truth."
"I'm afraid your 'boss' wouldn't agree with you."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Indeed it isn't. He always treats me as though I were a hot potato, and he were afraid of burning his fingers."
Jerry roared.
"Well, perhaps he's got good reason."
Diana shook; her head smilingly.
"Oh, no. It's not that. Mr. Errington doesn't like me."
Jerry stared at her reflectively.
"That couldn't be true," he said at last, with conviction.
"I don't know that I like him—very much—either," pursued Diana.
"You would if you really knew him," said the boy eagerly. "He's one of the very best."
"He's rather a mysterious person, don't you think?"
Jerry regarded her very straightly.
"Oh, well," he returned bluntly, "every man's a right to have his own private affairs."
Then there was something!
Diana felt her heart beat a little faster. She had thrown out the remark as the merest feeler, and now his own secretary, the man who must be nearer to him than any other, had given what was tantamount to an acknowledgment of the fact that Errington's life held some secret.
"Anyway"—Jerry was speaking again—"I've got good reason to be grateful to him. I was on my uppers when he happened along—and without any prospect of re-soling. I'd played the fool at Monte Carlo, and, like a brick, he offered me the job of private secretary, and I've been with him ever since. I'd no references, either—he just took me on trust."
"That was very kind of him," said Diana slowly.
"Kind! There isn't one man in a hundred who'll give a chance like that to a young ass that's played the goat as I did."
"No," agreed Diana. "But," she added, rather low, "he isn't always kind."
At this moment the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered the room. He paused on the threshold, and for an instant Diana could have sworn that as his eyes met her own a sudden light of pleasure flashed into their blue depths, only to be immediately replaced by his usual look of cold indifference. He glanced round the room, apparently somewhat surprised to find Diana and his secretary its sole occupants.
"We're all here now except our hostess," observed the latter cheerfully, following his thought.
"So it seems. I didn't know"—looking across from Jerry to Diana in a puzzled way—"that you two were acquainted with each other."
"We aren't—at least, we weren't," replied Jerry. "We met by chance, like two angels that have made a bid for the same cloud."
Errington smiled faintly.
"And did you persuade your—fellow angel—to sing to you?" he asked drily.
"No. Does she sing?"
"Does she sing? . . . Jerry, my young and ignorant friend, let me introduce you to Miss Diana Quentin, the—"
"Good Lord!" broke in Jerry, his face falling. "Are you Miss Quentin—the Miss Quentin? Of course I've heard all about you.—you're going to be the biggest star in the musical firmament—and here have I been gassing away about my little affairs just as though you were an ordinary mortal like myself."
Diana was beginning to laugh at the boy's nonsense when Errington cut in quietly.
"Then you've been making a great mistake, Jerry," he said. "Miss Quentin doesn't in the least resemble ordinary mortals. She isn't afflicted by like passions with ourselves, and she doesn't understand—or forgive them."
The words, uttered as though in jest, held an undercurrent of meaning for Diana that sent the colour flying up under her clear skin. There was a bitter taunt in them that none knew better than she how to interpret.
She winced under it, and a fierce resentment flared up within her that he should dare to reproach, her—he, who had been the offender from first to last. Always, now, he seemed to be laughing at her, mocking her. He appeared an entirely different person from the man who had been so careful of her welfare during the eventful journey they had made together.
She lifted her head a little defiantly.
"No," she said, with significance. "I certainly don't understand—some people."
"Perhaps it's just as well," retorted Errington, unmoved.
Jerry, sensing electricity in the atmosphere, looked troubled and uncomfortable. He hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about, but it was perfectly clear to him that everything was not quite as it should be between his beloved Max and this new friend, this jolly little girl with the wonderful eyes—just like a pair of stars, by Jove!—and, if rumour spoke truly, the even more wonderful voice.
Bashfully murmuring something about "going down to see if Miss de
Gervais had come in yet," he bolted out of the room, leaving Max and
Diana alone together.
Suddenly she turned and faced him.
"Why—why are you always so unkind to me?" she burst out, a little breathlessly.
He lifted his brows.
"I? . . . My dear Miss Quentin, I have no right to be either kind—or unkind—to you. That is surely the privilege of friends. And you showed me quite clearly, down at Crailing, that you did not intend to admit me to your friendship."
"I didn't," she exclaimed, and rushed on desperately. "Was it likely that I should feel anything but gratitude—and liking for any one who had done as much for me as you had?"
"You forget," he said quietly. "Afterwards—I transgressed. And you let me see that the transgression had wiped out my meritorious deeds—completely. It was quite the best thing that could happen," he added hastily, as she would have spoken. "I had no right, less right than any man on earth, to do—what I did. I abide by your decision."
The last words came slowly, meaningly. He was politely telling her that any overtures of friendship would be rejected.
Diana's pride lay in the dust, but she was determined he should not knew it. With her head held high, she said stiffly:—
"I don't think I'll wait any longer for Adrienne. Will you tell her, please, that I've gone back to Brutton Square?"
"Brutton Square?" he repeated swiftly. "Do you live there?"
"Yes. Have you any objection?"
He disregarded her mocking query and continued:—
"A Miss Lermontof lives there. Is she, by any chance, a friend of yours?" There seemed a hint of disapproval in his voice, and Diana countered, with another question.
"Why? Do you think I ought not to be friends with her?"
"I? Oh, I don't think about it at all"—with a little half-foreign shrug of his shoulders. "Miss Quentin's choice of friends is no concern of mine."
Unbidden, tears leaped into Diana's eyes at the cold satirical tones.
Surely, surely he had hurt her enough, for one day! Without a word she
turned and made her way blindly out of the room and down the stairs.
In the hall she almost ran into Jerry's arms.
"Oh, are you going?" he asked, in tones of disappointment.
"Yea, I'm afraid I mustn't wait any longer for Adrienne. I have some work to do when I get back."
Her voice shook a little, and Jerry, giving her a swift glance, could see that her lashes were wet and her eyes misty with tears.
"The brute!" he ejaculated mentally. "What's he done to her?"
Aloud he merely said:—
"Will you have a taxi?"
She nodded, and hailing one that chanced to be passing, he put her carefully into it.
"And—and I say," he said anxiously. "You didn't mind my talking to you this afternoon, did you, Miss Quentin? I made 'rather free,' as the servants say."
"No, of course I didn't mind," she replied warmly, her spirits rising a little. He was such a nice boy—the sort of boy one could be pals with. "You must come and see me at Brutton Square. Come to tea one day, will you?"
"Won't I?" he said heartily. "Good-bye." And the taxi swept away down the street.
Jerry returned to the drawing-room to find Errington staring moodily out of the window.
"I say, Max," he said, affectionately linking his arm in that of the older man. "What had you been saying to upset that dear little person?"
"I?"
"Yes. She was—crying."
Jerry felt the arm against his own twitch, and continued relentlessly:—
"I believe you've been snubbing her. You know, old man, you have a sort of horribly lordly, touch-me-not air about you when you choose. But I don't see why you should choose with Miss Quentin. She's such an awfully good sort."
"Yes," agreed Errington. "Miss Quentin is quite charming."
"She thinks you don't like her," pursued Jerry, after a moment's pause.
"I—not like Miss Quentin? Absurd!"
"Well, that's what she thinks, anyway," persisted Jerry. "She told me so, and she seemed really sorry about it. She believes you don't want to be friends with her."
"Miss Quentin's friendship would be delightful. But—you don't understand, Jerry—it's one of the delights I must forego."
When Errington spoke with such a definite air of finality, his young secretary knew from experience that he might as well drop the subject. He could get nothing further out of Max, once the latter had adopted that tone over any matter. So Jerry, being wise in his generation, held his peace.
Suddenly Errington faced round and laid his hands on the boy's shoulder.
"Jerry," he said, and his voice shook with some deep emotion. "Thank God—thank Him every day of your life—that you're free and untrammelled. All the world's yours if you choose to take it. Some of us are shackled—our arms tied behind our backs. And oh, my God! How they ache to be free!"
The blue eyes were full of a keen anguish, the stern mouth wry with pain. Never before had Jerry seen him thus with the mask off, and he felt as though he were watching a soul's agony unveiled.
"Max . . . dear old chap . . ." he stammered. "Can't I help?"
With an obvious effort Errington regained his composure, but his face was grey as he answered:—
"Neither you nor any one else, Jerry, boy. I must dree my weird, as the Scotch say. And that's the hard part of it—to be your own judge and jury. A man ought not to be compelled to play the double role of victim and executioner."
"And must you? . . . No way out?"
"None. Unless"—with a hard laugh—"the executioner throws up the game and—runs away, allowing the victim to escape. And that's impossible! . . . Impossible!" he reiterated vehemently, as though arguing against some inner voice.
"Let him rip," suggested Jerry. "Give the accused a chance!"
Errington laughed more naturally. He was rapidly regaining his usual self-possession.
"Jerry, you're a good pal, but a bad adviser. Get thee behind me."
Steps sounded on the stairs outside. Adrienne and Mrs. Adams had come back, and Errington turned composedly to greet them, the veil of reticence, momentarily swept aside by the surge of a sudden emotion, falling once more into its place.