The Halo Part 5

He was young, and French, and she was beautiful and he was desperately in love with her. Kneeling suddenly on the damp gra.s.s, he buried his face in his arms as they lay limply across the sun-dial. There was a long pause. He did not sob, he was quite still, but every line of him proclaimed unspeakable agony.

"Poor boy," she said gently.

Then he rose. "I am not a boy," he declared, his chin twitching but his voice firm, "and I love you. He is old and--_c'est un vieux roue_. I at least am young and I have lived a clean life."

He asked her no question, but she paused to consider. "I know, I understand," he continued, "you hate this life, you are bored and sick of it all; you do not love your mother. _Mon Dieu, ne pas pouvoir aimer sa mere!_ And you want to get away. Then--marry me instead. I am not so rich, but I am rich. And, ah, I love you--_je t'aime_."

Poor Pontefract, leaning back in his big Mercedes trying to realise his bliss, was jilted before Brigit had spoken a word. Like a flash, his image seemed to stand before her, beside the delightful boy-man whose youth and niceness pleaded so strongly to her. She did not consider that breaking her word was not fair play, she had no thought of pity for Pontefract. She loved n.o.body, and therefore thought solely of herself.

This boy was right. She would be happier with him than with poor, old, fat Ponty. So poor, old, fat Ponty went to the wall, and putting her hands into Joyselle's, she said slowly:

"Very well--I will. I will marry you. Only--you must know that I am an odious person, selfish and moody, and----"

But she could not finish her sentence, because Joyselle had her in his arms and was kissing her.

"I will be your servant and your slave," he told her, with very bad judgment but much sincerity. "I will serve you on my knees."

"Now you must--buck up--and not let them see to-night. Mother will be cross at first. And--I must write Ponty before we tell."

Her practical tone struck chill on Joyselle's glowing young ear, but he followed her obediently to the house. As they reached the door the opening bar of Mendelssohn's Wedding March rang out, played with a mastery of the pianola that, in that house, only Kingsmead was capable of.

On entering, Brigit's face was scarlet. She knew that her brother was welcoming the wrong bridegroom. And it suddenly occurred to her that it was awkward to be engaged to two men at once.

"I say----" began Tommy as he saw Joyselle, and she interrupted him hastily. "Play something of Sinding's, dear," she said, and the boy complied. But his eye was horribly knowing, and hard to bear.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lady Brigit leaned back in her corner and surveyed the otherwise empty compartment with a sigh of relief. She knew that her face still bore signs of the anger roused by her mother in their recent interview, and she felt the necessity of looking as savage as she felt.

And she felt very savage indeed. If an American Indian--an idealised, poeticised American Indian--could be invested with the beauty that does not belong to the red races and yet which, if perfected on the lines of beauty suggested by some of the n.o.bler specimens of the n.o.bler tribes, she might look like Brigit Mead. The girl had a clean-cutness of feature, a thin compactness of build, a stag-like carriage of her small head that, together with her almost bronze skin and coal-black hair, gave her an air remarkably and arrestingly un-English. The picture in the Luxembourg gallery, a typically French, subtle, secretive face, gives the expression of her face and the strange gleam in the long eyes.

But it, the face in the picture, is overcivilised, whereas Brigit looked untamed and resentful.

She wore, for the weather had changed with the unpleasant capriciousness of an elderly coquette, a warm, close-fitting black coat and skirt and a small black toque. Round her neck clung to its own tail, as if in a despairing attempt to find out what had happened to its own anatomy, a little sable boa. She had a dressing-case and an umbrella, both of them characteristically unc.u.mbersome and light, and several newspapers and a book.

Her journey was not to be a long one. She was going to change trains in London and go half an hour into Surrey to spend a few days with a friend. Lady Kingsmead, when told of the speedy jilting of the desirable Pontefract, and the subsequent acceptance of young Joyselle, had been disagreeable.

"It is ridiculous, and everyone will say you are cradle-s.n.a.t.c.hing," she had said. "When you are forty he will be thirty-seven--almost a boy still."

"Dearest mamma," returned the girl with a very unfilial lift of her upper lip, "forty is--_youth_!"

"And for you to marry a n.o.body; the son of n.o.body knows whom!"

"But everybody knows who his father is--which is rather distinguished nowadays!"

Then Lady Kingsmead, as was natural, quite lost her temper and stormed.

Brigit was an idiot, a fool, a beastly little creature to do such a thing. Ponty was a gentleman, at least, whereas----

"Whereas Theo is a delightful, nice, perfectly presentable young man, and the son of the greatest violinist of the century."

"Ah, bah! of the last ten years, yes."

"Of the century. As to Ponty--why don't you marry him yourself? Anyone could marry Ponty!"

Then, suddenly ashamed of herself, the girl had begged her mother's pardon, but Lady Kingsmead was not of those to whom the crowning charm of graceful forgiveness has been vouchsafed, and the battle went on. To end it, Brigit announced her intention of going to stop with her friend Pam de Lensky, and without more ado, or a word of good-bye, had left the house.

Now, though ashamed, or possibly because she was ashamed, her anger against her mother refused to subside, but grew stronger and bitterer as the train rushed through the dull afternoon Londonwards.

"Why shouldn't I marry whom I choose? What has she ever done for me that gives her a right to dictate to me? And I could _kill_ Gerald." A dark flush crept up her cheeks and her mouth twisted furiously. For Carron had dared to waylay her in the pa.s.sage on her way to her room, and his remarks had not been of a kind calculated to quiet her. Women who have loved are sorry for men who love them, but women who do not know what the word means are either amused or irritated by it. The conversation, carried on in a careful undertone, and lasting only about five minutes, was one that the girl would never, she knew, be able to forget, and one that neither she nor the man could ever make even a pretence of forgiving.

Far too excited and annoyed to read, she watched with unseeing eyes the swift flight of the familiar landscape, and then suddenly, as the train stopped, came to herself with a start. Victoria!

Mechanically, her thick chiffon veil over her face, she looked after her luggage, took a hansom, and drove down Victoria Street, past the Abbey, over Westminster Bridge, and so to Waterloo Station.

London was dull, but its dulness, grey and soft, was being mitigated by a gradual and beautiful blossoming of lights--lights reddish, golden, and clear white. People hurried along the streets, hansoms jingled and pa.s.sed by, buses and vans blocked the view and then, with elephantine deliberateness, ambled on. Motors of all kinds grunted and jingled, from the opulent, throaty-voiced ones, that chuckle as if they were fed on turtle-soup, to the cheap variety, that sound as they pa.s.s like an old-fas.h.i.+oned tinsmith's waggon.

And the combined effect of all these varied sounds was so different from the sound of Paris, or New York, or Berlin, that an intelligent blind man would have known where he was, if softly and undisturbingly dropped from a balloon to a safe street corner.

Brigit Mead had no particular love for the old town, just as she had no particular love for her little brother's country-house. She was too bored to care in the least where she was, and only a few people in the world could soothe her vexed and discontented mind to a sense of calm.

The woman to visit whom she was on her way was one of these, and as she bought her ticket and made her way to the train a little of her ill-temper died away. "Good old Pam," she whispered under her veil, "_she_ will be glad I didn't take Ponty!"

Then there would be the children--six-years-old Pammy, the De Lenskys'

adopted child, and their own little Eliza and Thaddy--the latter a delicious, roundabout person of eighteen months, the very feel of whom was comforting.

"An empty carriage, if there is one, please," she asked the guard, and he opened a door and helped her into a still unlit compartment. She closed the door and, letting down the gla.s.s, leaned her head on her hand and watched, through the veil she always wore when travelling as a protection against impertinent and boring admiration, the little crowd on the platform.

Most of them looked, thank Heaven, second cla.s.s--she would be alone. And then, just at the last, three men, all apparently very much excited and speaking French very loudly, rushed at her door and tore it open.

"_Adieu donc, cher maitre_"--"_Bon voyage_"--"_Au 'voir, mes enfants--merci infiniment_"--"_Mille tendresses a Eugenie!_"

And the train had started, leaving Brigit alone in the dusk with a very big man in a fur-collared overcoat and a long box, that he deposited with much care on the seat, humming to himself as he did so. Then he sat down and, taking off his broad-brimmed felt hat, wiped his forehead and face with a handkerchief that smelt strongly of violets.

Lady Brigit shrank fastidiously into her corner. Another thing to bore her. She was of those women who always hate their fellow-travellers and resent their existence. And this man was too big, there was too much fur on his coat, too much scent on his handkerchief. "_Salut demeure chaste et pure_," he began singing, suddenly, apparently quite unconscious of his companion's presence. "_Salut demeure_----" It was a high baritone voice, sweet and round, and his r's were like Theo Joyselle's. Brigit smiled. Dear Theo! Her mother could be as nasty as she liked, but they would be happy in spite of her. And then, as in the beginning of the world, it was light, and the girl recognised in her suddenly silent _vis-a-vis_ the man who was to be her father-in-law, Victor Joyselle.

He had taken off his hat, and his dark, handsome, excited face was distinctly visible under the untidy, slightly curly ma.s.s of peculiarly silky, silver-grey hair. Brigit drew a deep breath. Victor Joyselle! She had often heard him play. Those were the hands, in the brown dogskin gloves, that worked such witchery with his violin. That was the violin in the shabby box beside him. His dark eyes, over which the lids dropped at the outer corners, were now fixed on hers, he was trying to see through her veil. He was a magnificent creature, even now, with his youth behind him: his big nose had fine cut, sensitive nostrils, his mouth under a big moustache was well-cut and serene, and his strong chin was softened by a dimple. And he was to be--her father-in-law.

For the first time for months the girl felt the youth and sense of fun stir in her. Then he spoke--irrepressibly, as if he could not help it.

"I beg your pardon, madame, for singing," he burst out, "I--forgot that I was not alone."

She bowed without speaking. Madame!

"May I open the other window?" he pursued, rising restlessly and tearing off his gloves as if they hurt him, thereby revealing a large diamond on the little finger of his right--the bow-hand.

"Yes."

He did so, and then sat down, and taking an open telegram from his pocket, read it through several times, his nostrils quivering, his mouth dimpling in an uncontrollable and enchanting smile. Then again, as if impelled by some superior force, he turned to her and said: "I am not a lunatic, madame. I am Victor Joyselle. I have played--my very best this afternoon, and my son, _mon bebe_--is engaged to the most beautiful woman in England!"