Vision House Part 22

Mrs. Sorel was stricken dumb for once. Not that she intended to let things fall to pieces in any such way; but she was sure Marise wouldn't p.r.o.nounce what sounded like her own doom without reason. Mums would have it out with Marise and the Terrible Garth when everyone else had safely faded away.

The best she could do was to go herself to the vestibule door when the reporters left in a body and breathe a few words to them. "I wouldn't take all this as being definitely decided, if I were you. There may be a quick change. Better say that nothing's settled." And again, when Belloc and Sheridan gloomily departed, "Don't give up. I'll 'phone you later.

There's sure to be better news!"

Returning, Mary Sorel the dauntless was surprised and disgusted to find herself vaguely afraid of the man she had despised. She had the same fear of him that one has of an impersonal force like electricity, which cannot be counted on, and of which little is known except that it may strike without considering one's feelings in the least. She tried to shake off the sensation, however, for the man had evidently hypnotised Marise in some secret, deadly way, perhaps by threats of violence. All was lost if she--Mary--did not keep her head.

She entered the salon, therefore, with a bustling air. "Now, Major Garth," she began, "I hope to hear the meaning of this--this _ridiculous_ talk of my daughter throwing over her engagement and going West with you."

"She's thrown over one engagement in favour of another, hasn't she?"

Garth inquired with his habitual quiet insolence. "If you asked the Reverend Mr. Jones, I think he'd say she had."

"I wish to ask no one anything about my daughter," Mrs. Sorel crushed the upstart. "I merely a.s.sert that it's time this nonsense ceased. It's gone disastrously far already."

"It's up to you and Marise to say how much further it shall go."

"'Marise'! Who gave you permission to call her Marise?"

Garth laughed. Even the girl uttered a faint hysterical giggle. It was rather funny to hear poor Mums ask that! But then Mums prided herself on having no vulgar sense of humour to interfere with justice.

"What would you like me to call her?" the man wanted to know. "'Miss Sorel' would be hardly proper now. And for a husband to call his wife 'Mrs. Garth' would be more suited, wouldn't it, to the lower circles I sprang from, than the high ones where she moves?"

Mary Sorel was reduced to heaving silence. As she bit her lip, Garth turned to Marise. "Would you prefer me to make things clear to your mother, or would you rather I'd go, and leave it to you?"

Marise s.n.a.t.c.hed at the chance he gave. "Go, please," she answered quickly. "I'll--tell Mums what you--said in the taxi. She and I will talk things over, and--and I'll see you again to-morrow or sometime."

"Or sometime," he echoed.

The girl expected him to remind her rudely of the bridal suite he had engaged in the hotel, but he did not. He took up his smart Guards cap, laid the handsome lavender-grey overcoat on his arm, and went to the door. "Au revoir," he said, p.r.o.nouncing his French remarkably well for a man of the lower stratum. Then, without a word as to the next meeting, in spite of all his threats, he was gone.

What _did_ it mean? Marise asked herself. Had he been bluffing? Or had he seen the monstrous folly of terrorising her? She would have given much to know. Perhaps he guessed that!

Ostentatiously Mums flew to lock the door. She locked it loudly, and running back took Marise into her arms. "My poor child!" she wailed.

"What has he _done_ to you? You are like a dove with a snake!"

Strange, that in a turmoil of anger and dread as she was, Marise was continually wanting to laugh! The thought of herself as a fluttering dove and the big, brutal Garth as a sinuous snake was comic! But there was, alas, nothing else comic in the situation, and she explained it as she saw it, while Mums punctuated each sentence with moans.

"It's awful!" sighed Mary at last. "But there's nothing really to be _feared_, so we must cheer up. Our protection is that this fellow's poor as a church rat (I _can't_ call him a mouse!). When it comes to the point he will have to toe the mark, and keep to his bargain----"

"Ah, that's it!" cried Marise. "He says through _my_ action the bargain is off. He wouldn't explain what he meant: said I'd see for myself sooner or later. But I don't see yet. Do you?"

"I do not, indeed. I believe it's only more wicked bluff on his part. He talks of taking you West with him. What does he expect you to live on?

Your own money? He hasn't got his million dollars yet, and he'll lose the lot unless he behaves himself," Mums laid down the law. "For goodness' sake, though, don't complain to Tony of the creature's threats! Tony would fight him--kill him, perhaps. What a sickening scandal! No, you've made an appalling mistake by marrying Garth before you needed to do so, and giving him a hold over you just as Tony is going so far away. But you can take care of yourself--or if you can't I can take care of you. As for this suite the man boasts about, I'll 'phone down now to the manager and question him. If it adjoins this, as it probably does--that would have been arranged if possible, no doubt--why, everything will be simple enough."

Marise did not answer. She was beginning to think that nothing was quite simple where Garth was concerned.

CHAPTER XIX

WHY THE BARGAIN WAS OFF

Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She went alone with Celine, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache, and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.

"You'll be more able to help me out with--any complications that may come afterwards," she said.

The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was the place crammed with flowers--all white, bridal flowers (that in itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting a cue.

"Take these things into the dressing-room, Celine," ordered Marise, tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."

When Celine had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.

"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.

"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.

"No-o, I haven't invited him."

"But he's coming, isn't he?"

"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."

"I do know. Just because it _is_ different, I don't mean him to come unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise.

And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone (I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was expected to pay a call upon the bride."

Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then without a word went into her dressing-room.

Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl--though she, too, told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner--couldn't bring herself to utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire.

Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!

Helped by Celine she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book as if the place belonged to him.

Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to bow her acknowledgments. Marise had pa.s.sed such an "upsetting" day that she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief, she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I believe I really _am_ a great actress!" she thought; and choked at the pity of it--the pity that--whatever happened now--she was bound to leave the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate on Tony long enough to answer her own question.

Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now: but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and any moment Tony might come!

There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat stolid as a Buddha when she pa.s.sed through, and she went by him as if he were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he did not lift his eyes from his book!

The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in, and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor were her vertebrae deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered by Celine, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss Sorel."

"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse: but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.

"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your dressing-room, _en famille_, so to speak. And I _shall_ go out if you go, as in the circ.u.mstances I don't care for you to speak with him alone."

"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts tearing about?" Marise rebelled.

"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.