CHAPTER XVIII
KETTERING HEARS SOMETHING
"I shall never be able to manage it if I live to be a hundred," said
Christine despairingly.
She leaned back in the padded seat of Kettering's big car and looked up into his face with laughing eyes.
She had been trying to drive; she had driven the car at snail's pace the length of the drive leading from Upton House, and tried to turn out of the open carriage gate into the road.
"If you hadn't been here we should have gone into the wall, shouldn't we?" she demanded.
Kettering laughed.
"I'm very much afraid we should," he said. "But that's nothing. I did all manner of weird things when I first started to drive. Take the wheel again and have another try."
But Christine refused.
"I might smash the car, and that would be awful. You'd never forgive me."
"Should I not!" His grave eyes searched her pretty face. "I don't think you need be very alarmed about that," he said. "However, if you insist——" He changed places with her and took the wheel himself.
It was early morning, and fresh and sunny. Christine was flushed and smiling, for the moment at least there were no shadows in her eyes; she looked more like the girl who had smiled up from the stalls in the theatre to where Jimmy Challoner sat alone in his box that night of their meeting.
Jimmy had never once been mentioned between herself and this man since that first afternoon. Save for the fact that Kettering called her "Mrs. Challoner," Christine might have been unmarried.
"Gladys will think we have run away," she told him presently with a little laugh. "I told her we should be only half an hour."
"Have we been longer?" he asked surprised.
Christine looked at her watch.
"Nearly an hour," she said. "We were muddling about in the drive for ever so long, you know; and I really think we ought to go back."
"If you really think so——" He turned the car reluctantly. "I suppose you wouldn't care for a little run after lunch?" he asked carelessly. "I've got to go over to Heston. I should be delighted to take you."
"I should love it—if I can bring Gladys."
He did not answer for a moment, then:
"Oh, bring Gladys by all means," he said rather dryly.
"What time?"
"I'll call for you at two—If that will do."
They had reached the house again now; Christine got out of the car and stood for a moment with one foot on the step looking up at Kettering.
There was a little silence.
"How long have we known each other?" he asked suddenly.
She looked up startled—she made a rapid calculation.
"Nearly three weeks, isn't it?" she said then.
He laughed.
"It seems longer; it seems as if I must have known you all my life."
The words were ordinary enough, but the look in his eyes brought the swift colour to Christine's cheeks—her eyes fell.
"Is that a compliment?" she asked, trying to speak naturally.
"I hope so; I meant it to be."
Her hand was resting on the open door of the car; for an instant he laid his own above it; Christine drew hers quickly away.
"Well, we'll be ready at two, then," she said. She turned to the house. Kettering drove slowly down the drive. He was a very fine-looking man, Christine thought with sudden wistfulness; he had been so kind to her—kinder than anyone she had ever known. She was glad he was going to have Upton House, as it had got to be sold. He had promised her to look after it, and not have any of the trees in the garden cut down.
"It shall all be left just as it is now," he told her.
"Perhaps some day you'll marry, and your wife will want it altered," she said sadly.
"I shall never get married," he had answered quickly.
She had been glad to hear him say that; he was so nice as a friend, somehow she did not want anyone to come along and change him.
She went into the house and called to Gladys.
"I thought you would think we were lost perhaps," she said laughingly, as she thrust her head into the morning-room where Gladys was sitting.
The elder girl looked up; her voice was rather dry when she answered:
"No, I did not think that."
Christine threw her hat aside.
"I can't drive a bit," she said petulantly. "I'm so silly! I nearly ran into the wall at the gate."
"Did you?"
"Yes. Gladys, we're going over to Heston at two o'clock with Mr.
Kettering."
Gladys looked up.
"We! Who do you mean by 'we'?"
"You and I, of course."
"Oh"—there was a momentary silence, then: "There's a letter for you on the table," said Gladys.
Christine turned slowly, a little flush of colour rushing to her cheeks. She glanced apprehensively at the envelope lying face upwards, then she drew a quick breath, almost of relief it seemed.
She picked the letter up indifferently and broke open the flap. There was a moment of silence; Gladys glanced up.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Christine was staring out of the window, the letter lay on the floor at her feet.
"Jimmy's ill," she said listlessly.
"Ill!" Gladys laid down her pen and swung round in the chair. "What's the matter with him?" she asked rather sceptically.
"I don't know. You can read the letter, it's from Mr.
Sangster—Jimmy's great friend."
She handed the letter over.
Gladys read it through and gave it back.
"Humph!" she said with a little inelegant sniff; she looked at her friend. "Are you going?" she asked bluntly.
Christine did not answer. She was thinking of Jimmy, deliberately trying to think of the man whom she had done her best during the last three weeks to forget. She tried to think of him as he had been that last dreadful night at the hotel, when he had threatened to strike her, when he had told her to clear out and leave him; but somehow she could only recall him as he had looked at Euston that morning when he said good-bye to her, with the hangdog, shamed look in his eyes, and the pathetic droop to his shoulders.
And now he was ill! It was kind of Sangster to have written, she told herself, even while she knew quite well that Jimmy had not asked him to; it would be the last thing in the world Jimmy would wish.
If he were ill, it was not because he wanted her. She drew her little figure up stiffly.
"I shan't go unless I hear again that it is serious," she said stiltedly.
"Not—go!" Gladys's voice sounded somehow blank, there was a curious expression in her eyes. After a moment she looked away. "Oh, well, you must please yourself, of course."
Christine turned to the door—she held Sangster's letter in her hand.
"Besides," she said flippantly, "I'm going over to Heston this afternoon with Mr. Kettering."
She went up to her room and shut the door. She stood staring before her with blank eyes, her pretty face had fallen again into sadness, her mouth dropped pathetically.
She opened Sangster's letter and read it through once more. Was Jimmy really ill, and was Sangster afraid to tell her, she wondered? Or was this merely Sangster's way of trying to bring them together again?
But Jimmy did not want her; even if he were dying Jimmy would not want to see her again.
If he had cared he would never have consented to this separation; if he had cared—but, of course, he did not care!
She began to cry softly; big tears ran down her cheeks, and she brushed them angrily away.
She had tried to shut him out of her heart. She had tried to forget him. In a defensive, innocent way she had deliberately encouraged Kettering. She liked him, and he helped her to forget; it restored her self-esteem to read the admiration in his kind eyes, it helped to soothe the hurt she had suffered from Jimmy's hands; and yet, in spite of it all, he was not Jimmy, and nobody could ever take Jimmy's place. She kept away from Gladys till lunch time, when at last she appeared, her eyes were red and swollen, and she held her head defiantly high. Gladys considerately let her alone. Somehow, in spite of everything, she quite expected to hear that Christine was off to London by the afternoon train, but the meal passed almost in silence, and when it was finished Christine said:
"We'd better get ready; Mr. Kettering will be there at two."
Gladys turned away.
"I'd rather not go, if you don't mind," she said uncomfortably.
"Not—go!"
"No—I—I don't care about motoring. I—I've got a headache too."
Christine stared at her, then she laughed defiantly.
"Oh, very well; please yourself."
She went upstairs to dress; she took great pains to make herself look pretty. When Kettering arrived she noticed that his eyes went past her gloomily as if looking for someone else.
"Gladys is not coming," she said.
His face brightened.
"Not coming! Ought I to be sorry, I wonder?"
She laughed.
"That's rude."
"I'm sorry." He tucked the rug round her, and they started away down the drive. "You don't want the wheel, I suppose?" he asked whimsically.
Christine shook her head.
"Have you—you been crying?" Kettering asked abruptly.
Christine flushed scarlet.
"Whatever makes you ask me that?"
"Your eyes are red," he told her gently.
She looked up at him with resentment, and suddenly the tears came again. Kettering bit his lip hard. He did not speak for some time.
"I've got a headache," Christine said at last with an effort. "I—oh,
I know it's silly. Don't laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing." His voice dragged a little; he kept his eyes steadily before him.
"I thought perhaps something had happened—that you had had bad news," he said presently. "If—if there is anything I can do to help you, you know—you know I——"
"There isn't anything the matter," she interrupted with a rush. She was terrified lest he should guess that her tears were because of Jimmy; she had a horror nowadays that everyone would know that she cared for a man who cared nothing for her; she brushed the tears away determinedly; she set herself to talk and smile.
They had tea at Heston, in the little square parlour of a country inn where the floor was only polished boards, and where long wooden trestles ran on two sides of the room.
"It looks rather thick," Kettering said ruefully, standing looking down at the plate of bread and butter. "I hope you don't mind; this is the best place in the village."
Christine laughed.
"It's like what we used to have at school, and I'm hungry."
She looked up at him with dancing eyes; she had quite forgotten her sorrow of the morning. Somehow this man's presence always cheered her and took her out of herself. She poured tea for him, and laughed and chatted away merrily.
Afterwards they sat over the fire and talked.
Christine said she could see faces in the red coals; she painted them out to Kettering.
He had to stoop forward to see what she indicated; for a moment their heads were very close together; it was Christine who drew back sharply.
"Oughtn't we to be going home?" she asked with sudden nervousness.
She rose to her feet and went over to the window; the sunshine had gone, and the country road was grey and shadowy. Kettering's big car stood at the kerb. After a moment he followed her to the window; he was a little pale, his eyes seemed to avoid hers.
"I am quite ready when you are," he said.
She was fastening her veil over her hat; her fingers shook a little as she tied the bow.
Kettering had gone to pay for the tea; she stood looking after him with dawning apprehension in her eyes.
He was a fine enough man; there was something about him that gave one such a feeling of safety—of security. She could not imagine that he would ever deliberately set himself to hurt a woman, as—as Jimmy had. She went out to the car and stood waiting for him.
"All that tea for one and threepence!" he said, laughing, when he joined her. "Wonderful, isn't it?"
She laughed too. She got in beside him and tucked the rug round her warmly.
"How long will it take to get home?" she asked. She seemed all at once conscious of the growing dusk, conscious, too, of anxiety to get back to Gladys. She was a little afraid of this man, though she would not admit it even to herself.
"We ought to be home in an hour," he said. He started the engine.
The car ran smoothly for a mile or two. Christine began to feel sleepy. Kettering did not talk much, and the fresh evening air on her face was soothing and pleasant. She closed her eyes.
Presently when Kettering spoke to her he got no answer; he turned a little in his seat and looked down at her, but her head was drooping forward and he could not see her face.
"Christine." He spoke her name sharply, then suddenly he smiled; she was asleep.
He moved so that her head rested against his arm; he slowed the car down a little.
Kettering was not a young man, his fortieth birthday had been several years a thing of the past, but all his life afterwards he looked back on that drive home to Upton House as the happiest hour he had ever known, with Christine's little head resting on his arm and the grey twilight all about them. When they were half a mile from home he roused her gently. She sat up with a start, rubbing sleepy eyes.
"Oh! where are we?" He laid his hand on hers for a moment.
"You've been asleep. We're nearly home."
He turned in at the drive of Upton House. He let her get out of the car unassisted.
Gladys was at the door; her eyes were anxious.
"I thought you must have had an accident," she said. She caught
Christine's hand. "You're fearfully late."
"We had tea at Heston," Christine said. She ran into the house.
Kettering looked at the elder girl.
"You would not come," he said. "Don't you care for motoring?"
"No." She came down the steps and stood beside him. "Mr. Kettering, may I say something?"
He looked faintly surprised.
"May you! Why, of course!"
"You will be angry—you will be very angry, I am afraid," she said.
"But—but I can't help it."
"Angry! What do you mean?"
There was a moment's silence, then:
"Well," said Kettering rather curtly.
She flushed, but her eyes did not fall.
"Mr. Kettering, if you are a gentleman, and I know you are, you will never come here again," she said urgently.
A little wave of crimson surged under Kettering's brown skin, but his eyes did not fall; there was a short silence, then he laughed—rather mirthlessly.
"And if I am not the gentleman you so very kindly seem to believe me," he said constrainedly.
Gladys Leighton came a little closer to him; she laid her hand on his arm.
"You don't mean that; you're only saying it because—because——" She broke off with an impatient gesture. "Oh!" she said exasperatedly, "what is the use of loving a person if you do not want them to be happy—if you cannot sacrifice yourself a little for them."
Kettering looked at her curiously. He had never taken much notice of her before; he had thought her a very ordinary type; he was struck by the sudden energy and passion in her voice.
"She is not happy now, at all events," he said grimly.
She turned away and fidgeted with the wheel of the car.
"She could not very well be more unhappy than she is now," he said again bitterly.
"She would be more unhappy if she knew she had done something to be ashamed of—something she had got to hide."
He raised his eyes.
"Are you holding a brief for Challoner?" he asked.
She frowned a little.
"You know I am not; I never thought he was good enough for her. Even years ago as a boy he was utterly selfish; but—but Christine loved him then; she thought there was nobody in all the world like him; she adored him."
He winced. "And now?" he asked shortly.
She did not answer for a moment; she stood looking away from him.
"There was a letter this morning," she said tonelessly. "Jimmy is ill, and they asked her to go to him."
"Well!"
"She would not go. She told me she was going to Heston with you instead."
The silence fell again. Kettering's eyes were shining; there was a sort of shamed triumph about his big person.
Gladys turned to him impatiently.
"Are you looking glad? Oh, I think I should kill you if I saw you looking glad," she said quickly. "I only told you that so that you might see how much she is under your influence already; so that you can save her from herself. . . . She's so little and weak—and now that she is unhappy, it's just the time when she might do something she would be sorry for all her life—when she might——"
"What are you two talking about?" Christine demanded from the doorway.
She came down the steps and stood between them; she looked at
Kettering. "I thought you had gone," she said, surprised.
"No; I—Miss Leighton and I have been discussing the higher ethics," he said dryly. He held his hand to Gladys. "Well, good-bye," he said; there was a little emphasis on the last word.
She just touched his fingers.
"Good-bye." She put her arm round Christine; there was something defensive in her whole attitude.
Kettering got into the car; he did not look at Christine again. He started the engine; presently he was driving slowly away.
"Have you two been quarreling?" Christine asked. There was a touch of vexation in her voice; her eyes were straining through the darkness towards the gate.
Gladys laughed.
"Quarrelling! Why ever should I quarrel with Mr. Kettering? I've hardly spoken half a dozen words to him in all my life."
"You seemed to have a great deal to say to him, all the same,"
Christine protested, rather shortly.
They went back to the house together.
It was during dinner that night that Gladys deliberately led the conversation round to Jimmy again.
They had nearly finished the unpretentious little meal; it had passed almost silently. Christine looked pale and preoccupied. Gladys was worried and anxious.
A dozen times during the past few days she had tried to decide whether she ought to write to Jimmy or not. Her sharp eyes had seen from the very first the way things were going with regard to Kettering, and she was afraid of the responsibility. If anything happened—if Christine chose to doubly wreck her life—afterwards they might all blame her; she knew that.
She was fond of Christine, too. And though she had never approved of
Jimmy, she would have done a great deal to see them happy together.
It was for that reason that she now spoke of him.
"When are you going to London, Chris?"
Christine looked up; she flushed.
"Going to London! I am not going. . . . I never want to go there any more."
Gladys made no comment; she had heard the little quiver in the younger girl's voice.
Presently:
"I suppose you think I ought to go to Jimmy," Christine broke out vehemently. "I suppose you are hinting that it is my duty to go. You don't know what you are talking about; you don't understand that he cares nothing about me—that he would be glad if I were dead and out of the way. He only wants his freedom; he never really wished to marry me."
"It isn't as bad as that. I am sure he——"
"You don't know anything about him. You don't know what I went through during those hateful weeks before—before I came here. I don't care if I never see him again; he has never troubled about me. It's my turn now; I am going to show him that he isn't the only man in the world."
Gladys had never heard Christine talk like this before; she was frightened at the recklessness of her voice. She broke in quickly:
"I won't listen if you're going to say such things. Jimmy is your husband, and you loved him once, no matter what you may do now. You loved him very dearly once."
Christine laughed.
"I've got over that. He wasn't worth breaking my heart about. I was just a poor little fool in those days, who didn't know that a man never cares for a woman if he is too sure of her. Oh, if I could only have my time over again, I'd treat him so differently—I'd never let him how how much I cared."
Her voice had momentarily fallen back into its old wistfulness. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
"Don't talk about him; I don't want to talk about him."
But Gladys persisted.
"It isn't too late; you can have the time all over again by starting afresh, and trying to wipe out the past. You're so young. Why, Jimmy is only a boy; you've got all your lives before you." She got up and went round to where Christine was sitting. She put an arm about her shoulders. "Why don't you forgive him, and start again? Give him another chance, dear, and have a second honeymoon."
Christine pushed her away; she started up with burning cheeks.
"You don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone—oh, do leave me alone." She ran from the room.
She lay awake half the night thinking of what Gladys had said. She tried to harden her heart against Jimmy. She tried to remember only that he had married her out of pique; that he cared nothing for her—that he did not really want her. As a sort of desperate defence she deliberately thought of Kettering; he liked her, she knew. She was not too much of a child to understand what that look in his eyes had meant, that sudden pressure of his hand on hers.
And she liked him, too. She told herself defiantly that she liked him very much; that she would rather have been with him over at Heston that afternoon than up in town with Jimmy. Kettering at least sought and enjoyed her society, but Jimmy——
She clenched her hands to keep back the blinding tears that crowded to her eyes. What was she crying for? There was nothing to cry for; she was happy—quite happy; she was away from Jimmy—away from the man whose presence had only tortured her during those last few days; she was at home—at Upton House, and Kettering was there whenever she wanted him. She hoped he would come in the morning again; that he would come quite early. After breakfast she wandered about the house restlessly, listening for the sound of his car in the drive outside; but the morning dragged away and he did not come.
Christine ate no lunch; her head ached, she said pettishly when Gladys questioned her. No, she did not want to go out; there was nowhere to go.
And all the time her eyes kept turning to the window again and again restlessly.
Gladys did not know what to do; she was hoping and praying in her heart that Kettering would do as she had asked him, and stay away. What was the good of him coming again? What was the good of him making himself indispensable to Christine? The day passed wretchedly. Once she found Christine huddled up on the sofa crying; she was so miserable, she sobbed; nobody cared for her; she was so lonely, and she wanted her mother.
Gladys did all she could to comfort her, but all the time she was painfully conscious of the fact that had Kettering walked into the room just then there would have been no more tears.
Sometimes she thought that it only served Jimmy Challoner right; sometimes she told herself that this was his punishment—that Fate was fighting him with his own weapons, paying him back in his own coin; but she knew such thoughts were mere foolishness.
He and Christine were married, no matter how strongly they might resent it. The only thing left to them was to make the best they could of life.
She sat with Christine that night till the girl was asleep. She was not very much Christine's senior in years, but she felt somehow old and careworn as she sat there in the silent room and listened to the girl's soft breathing.
She got up and went over to stand beside her.
So young, such a child, it seemed impossible that she was already a wife, this girl lying there with her soft hair falling all about her.
Gladys sighed and walked over to the window. It must be a great thing to be loved, she thought rather sadly; nobody had ever loved her; no man had ever looked at her as Kettering looked at little Christine. . . . She opened the window and looked out into the darkness.
It was a mild, damp night. Grey mist veiled the garden and shut out the stars; everything was very silent.
If only Christine's mother had been here to take the responsibility of it all, she thought longingly; she had so little influence with Christine herself. She closed the window and went back to the bedside.
Christine was moving restlessly. As Gladys looked down at her she began to laugh in her sleep—a little chuckle of unaffected joy.
Gladys smiled, too, involuntarily. She was happy in her dreams, at any rate, she thought with a sense of relief.
And then suddenly Christine woke with a start. She sat up in bed, throwing out her arms.
"Jimmy——" But it was a cry of terror, not of joy.
"Jimmy—Jimmy—don't hurt me. . . . oh!"
She was sobbing now—wild, pitiful sobs.
Gladys put her arms round her; she held her tightly.
"It's all right, dear. I'm here—nobody shall hurt you." She stroked her hair and soothed and kissed her; she held her fast till the sobbing ceased. Then:
"I've been dreaming," said Christine tremblingly. "I thought"—she shivered a little—"I thought—thought someone was going to hurt me."
"Nobody can hurt you while I am here; dreams are nothing—nobody believes in dreams."
Christine did not answer. She had never told Gladys of that one moment when Jimmy had tried to strike her—when beside himself with passionate rage and misery he had lifted his hand to strike her.
She fell asleep again, holding her friend's hand.