Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 7

"My character _has_ changed during the last five years, and especially so since I came back from South Africa. But I am quite sure it was not due to any operation, on the throat or anywhere else. I really don't know _why_ I told you that silly falsehood in the train--about necrosis of the jaw. The fact is that when I was in hospital--at--Colesberg, a friend of mine in the same ward used--to chaff me--and say I was going to have necrosis. I had got knocked over one day--by--the--wind of a sh.e.l.l and thought I was done for, but it really was next to nothing. P'raps I had a dose of fever on top. At any rate they kept me in hospital, and one morning the doctors disappeared and the Boers marched in and when I got well enough I managed to escape and get away to--er--Cape Town and so returned--with some money--my friend Frank Gardner lent me." (At this stage the sick-at-heart Vivie was saying to herself, "_What_ an account I'm laying up for Frank to honour when he comes back--if he _does_ come back.") "I don't know _why_ I tell you all this, except that I ought never to have misled you at the start. But _if_ you are a kind and good man"--David's voice broke here--"You will forget all about it and not upset my father, I can _a.s.sure_ you I haven't done _anything_ really wrong. I haven't deserted--some day--perhaps--I can tell you all about it. But at present all that South African episode is just a horrid dream--I was more sinned against than sinning" (tears were rather in the voice at this stage). "I want to forget all about it--and settle down and vex my father no more. I want to read for the Bar--a soldier's life is the very _opposite_ to what I should choose if I were a free agent. But you will trust me, won't you? You will believe me when I say I've done _nothing_ wrong, nothing that you, if you knew all the facts, would call wrong...?"

Speech here trailed off into emotion. Despite the severest self-restraint the bosom rose and fell. A few tears trickled down the smooth cheeks--it was an ingratiating boy on the verge of manhood that Rossiter saw before him. He hastened to say:

"My _dear_ chap! Don't say another word, unless you like to blackguard me for my impertinence in putting these questions. I _quite_ understand. We'll consider the whole thing erased from our memories. Go on studying for the Bar with all your might, if you must take up so barren a profession and won't become my pupil in biology--Great openings, I can tell you, coming now in that direction." (A pause.)

"But if it's of any interest to you, just come here as often as you like in your spare time--either to tea with Mrs. Rossiter or to see me at work on my experiments. I've taken a great liking to you, if you'll allow me to say so. I think there's good stuff in you. A young man reading for the Bar in London is none the worse for a few friends. He must often feel pretty lonely on a Sunday, for example.

And he may also--now I'm going to be impertinent and paternal again--he may also pick up undesirable acquaintances, male--and female. Don't you get feeling lonely, with your home far away in Wales. Consider yourself free of this place at any rate, and my wife and I can introduce you to some other people you might like to know.

I might introduce you to Mark Stansfield the Q.C. Do you know any one in London, by the bye?"

"Oh yes," said David, smiling with all but one tear dried on a still coloured cheek. "I know Honoria Fraser--I know Mr. Praed the architect--"

"The A.R.A.? Of course; you or your father said you had been his pupil. H'm. Praed. Yes, I visualize him. Rather a dilettante--whimsical--I didn't like what I heard of him at one time. However it's no affair of mine. And Honoria Fraser! She's simply one of the best women I know. It's curious she wasn't here--At least I didn't see her--this afternoon. She's a friend of my wife's. I knew her when she was at Newnham. She had a great friend--what was it? Violet? No, Vera? Vivien--yes that was it, _Vivien_ Warren. Of course! Why that business she started for women in the City somewhere is called _Fraser and Warren_. She was always wanting to bring this Vivien Warren here. Said she had such a pretty colouring. I own I rather like to see a pretty woman. But she didn't come" (pulls at his pipe and thrusts another cigarette on David).

"Went abroad. Seemed rather morose. Some one who came with Honoria said she had a bad mother, and Honoria very rightly shut him up. By the bye, _where_ and _how_ did you come to meet Honoria first?"

(David was on the point of saying--he was so unstrung--"Why we were at Newnham together." Then resolved to tell another whopper--Indeed I am told there is a fascination in certain circ.u.mstances about lying--and replied): "Vivien Warren was my cousin. She was a Vavasour on her mother's side--from South Wales--and my mother was a Vavasour too--" And as the disguised Vivie said this, some inkling came into her mind that there _was_ a real relations.h.i.+p between Catharine Warren _nee_ Vavasour and the Mary Vavasour who was David's mother. A spasm of joy flashed through her at the possibility of her story being in some slight degree true.

"I see," said Rossiter, satisfied, and feeling now that the interview had lasted long enough and that there would be just time to glance at his a.s.sistant's afternoon work before he dressed for dinner....

"Well, old chap. Good-bye for the present. Come often and see us and look upon me--I must be fifteen years older than you are--What, _twenty-four_? Impossible! You don't look a day older than twenty--in fact, if you hadn't told me you'd been in South Africa--However as I was saying, look on me as _in loco parentis_ while you _are_ in London. I'll show you the way out into the hall.

Shall they call you a cab? No? You're quite right. It's a splendid night for January. Where do you live? Here, write it down in my address book.... '7 Fig Tree Court, Temple'--What a jolly address!

Are there fig trees in the Temple ... still? P'raps descended from cuttings or layers the poor Templars brought from the Holy Land."

David returned to Fig Tree Court and his studies of criminology. But his body and mind thrilled with the experiences of the afternoon; and the musty records in works of repellent binding and close, unsympathetic print of nineteenth century forgery, poisoning, a.s.saults-on-the-person, and cruelty-to-children cases for once failed to hold his close attention. He sat all through the evening after a supper of bread and cheese and ginger beer in his snug, small room, furnished princ.i.p.ally with well-filled book-shelves. The room had a glowing fire and a green-shaded reading lamp. He sat staring beyond his law books at visions, waking dreams that came and went. The dangers of exposure that opened before him were in these dreams, but there were other mind-pictures that filled his life with a glow of colour. How different from the drab horizons that encircled poor Vivie Warren less than a year ago! Poor Vivie, whom even FitzJohn's Avenue at Hampstead had rejected, who had long since been dropped--no doubt on account of rumours concerning her mother--by the few acquaintances she had made at Cambridge, who had parents living in South Kensington, Bayswater, and Bloomsbury. Here was Portland Place receiving her in her guise as David Williams with open arms. Men and women looked at her kindly, interestedly, and she could look back at them without that protective frown. At night she could walk about the town, go to the theatre, stroll along the Embankment and attract no man's offensive attentions. She could enter where she liked for a meal, a cup of tea, frequent the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons when she would without waiting for a "ladies" day; stop to look at a street fight, cause no sour looks if she entered a smoking compartment on the train, mingle with the man-world unquestioned, unhindered, unnoticed, exciting at most a pleasant off-hand camaraderie due to her youth and good looks.

Should she go on with the bold adventure? A thousand times yes!

David should break no law in Vivie's code of honour, do real wrong to no one; but Vivie should see the life best worth living in London from a man's standpoint.

David however must be armed at every point and have his course clearly marked out before his contemplation. He must steep himself in the geography of South Africa--Why not get Rossiter to propose him as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society? That _would_ be a lark because they wouldn't admit women as members: they had refused Honoria Fraser. David must read up--somewhere--the history of the South African War as far as it went. He had better find out something about the Bechua.n.a.land Police Force; how as a member of such a force he could have drifted as far south as the vicinity of Colesberg; how thereabouts he could have got sick enough--he certainly would say nothing more about a wound--to have been put into hospital. He must find out how he could have escaped from the Boers and come back to England without getting into difficulties with the military or the Colonial Office or whoever had any kind of control over the members of the Bechua.n.a.land Border Police....

But the whole South African episode had better be dropped. Rossiter, after his appeal, would set himself to forget and ignore it. It must be damped down in the poor old father's mind as of relative unimportance--after all, his father was a recluse who did not have many visitors ... by the bye, he must remember to write on the morrow and explain why he could not come down for Christmas or the New Year ... would promise a good long visit in the Easter holidays instead--Must remember that resolution to learn up some Welsh. What a nuisance it was that you couldn't buy anywhere in London or in South Wales any book about modern conversation in Welsh. The sort of Welsh you learnt in the old-fas.h.i.+oned books, which were all that could be got, was Biblical language--Some one had told David that if you went into Smithfield Market in the early morning you might meet the Welsh farmers and stock-drivers who had come up from Wales during the night and who held forth in the Cymric tongue over their beasts. But probably their language was such as would shock Nannie.... Supposing Frank Gardner did come to England? In that case it might be safer to confide in Frank. He was harum-scarum, but he was chivalrous and he pitied Vivie. Besides he was a prime appreciator of a lark. Should she even tell Rossiter? No, of _course_ not. That was just one of the advantages of being "David."

As "David" she could form a sincere and inspiring friends.h.i.+p with Rossiter which would be utterly beyond her reach as "Vivie." How pale beside the comrades.h.i.+p of Honoria now appeared the hand-grips, the hearty male free-masonry of a man like Rossiter. How ungrateful however even to make such an admission to herself....

At present the only people who knew of her prank and guessed or knew her purpose were Honoria and Bertie Adams. Honoria! what a n.o.ble woman, what a true friend. Somehow, now she was David, she saw Honoria in a different light. Poor Norie! She too had her wistful leanings, her sorrows and disappointments. What a good thing it would be if her mother decided to die--of course she would, could, never say any such thing to Norie--to die and set free Honoria to marry Major Petworth Armstrong! She felt Norie still hankered after him, but perhaps kept him at bay partly because of her mother's molluscous clingings--No! she wouldn't even sneer at Lady Fraser.

Lady Fraser had been one of the early champions of Woman's rights.

Very likely it was a dread of Vivie's sneers and disappointment that had mainly kept back Norie from accepting Major Armstrong's advances. Well, when next they met she--Vivie--or better still David--would set that right.

CHAPTER VII

HONORIA AGAIN

7, Fig Tree Court, Temple.

_March_ 20, 1902.

DEAR HONORIA,--

I am going down to spend Easter with my people in South Wales. Before I leave I should so very much like a long talk with you where we can talk freely and undisturbed. That is impossible at the Office for a hundred reasons, especially now that Beryl Claridge has taken to working early in her new-found zeal, while Bertie Adams deems it his duty to stay late. I am--really, truly--grieved to hear that your mother is so ill again. I would not ask to meet her--even if she was well enough to receive people--because she does not know me and when one is as ill as she is, the introduction to a stranger is a horrid jar. But if you _could_ fit in say an hour's detachment from her side--is it "bed-side" or is she able to get up?--and could receive me in your own sitting-room, why then we could have that full and free talk I should like on your affairs and on mine and on the joint affairs of _Fraser and Warren_.

Yours sincerely, D. V. W.

DEAR DAVID,--

Come by all means. The wish for a talk is fully reciprocated on my side. Mother generally tries to sleep in the afternoon between three and six, and a Nurse is then with her.

Yours sincerely, H. F.

"Mr. David Williams wishes to see you, Miss," said a waiter, meeting Honoria on a Thursday afternoon, as she was emerging into their tiny hall from her mother's room.

"Show him up, please.... Ah _there_ you are, _David_. We must both talk rather low as mother is easily waked. Come into my study; fortunately it is at the other end of the flat."

They reach the study, and Honoria closes the door softly but firmly behind them.

"We never do kiss as a rule, having long ago given up such a messy form of greeting; but certainly we wouldn't under these circ.u.mstances lest we could be seen from the opposite windows and thought to be 'engaged'; but though I may seem a little frigid in greeting you, it is only because of the clothes you are wearing'--You understand, don't you--?"

"Quite, dearest. We cannot be too careful. Besides we long ago agreed to be modern and sanitary in our manners."

"Won't you smoke?"

"Well, perhaps it would be more restful," said David, "more manly; but as a matter of fact of late I have been rather 'off' smoking. It is very wasteful, and as far as I am concerned it never produced much effect--either way--on the nerves. Still, it gives one a nice manly flavour. I always liked the smell of a smoking-room.... And your mother: how is she?"

"Very bad, I fear. The doctor tells me she can't last much longer, and hypocritical as the phrase sounds I couldn't wish her to, unless these pains can be mitigated, and this dreadful distress in breathing.... I wonder if some day _I_ shall be like that, and if behind my back a daughter will be saying she couldn't wish me to live much longer, unless, etc. I shall miss her _frightfully_, if she does die.... Armstrong has been more than kind. He has got a woman's heart for tenderness. He thinks every day of some fresh palliative until the doctors quite dislike him. Fortunately his kindness gives mother a fleeting gleam of pleasure. She wants me to marry him--I don't know, I'm sure.... Whilst she's so bad I don't feel I could take any interest in love-making--and I suppose we _should_ make love in a perfunctory way--We're all of us so bound by conventions. We try to feel dismal at funerals, when often the weather is radiant and the ride down to Brookwood most exhilarating.

And love-making is supposed to go with marriage ... heigh-ho! What should you say if I _did_ marry--Major Armstrong...? Did you ever hear of such a ridiculous name as Petworth? I should have to call him 'Pet' and every one would think I had gone sentimental in middle age. How _can_ parents be so unthinking about Christian names? He can't see the thing as I do; it is almost the only subject on which he is 'huffy.' _You_ are the other, about which more anon. He says the Petworth property meant _everything_ to the Armstrongs, to _his_ branch of the Armstrongs. But for that, they might have been any other kind of Armstrong--it always kept him straight at school and in the army, he says, to remember he was an Armstrong of Petworth.

They have held that poor little property (_I_ call it) alongside the Egmonts and the Leconfields for three hundred years, though they've been miserably poor. His second name is James--Petworth James Armstrong. But he loathes being called 'Jimmy.'

"Of course, dear, I've no illusions. I'm not bad to look at--indeed I sometimes quite admire my figure when I see myself after my bath in the cheval gla.s.s--but I'm pretty well sure that one of the factors in Pet's admiration for me was my income. Mother, it seems, has a little of her own, from one of her aunts, and if the poor darling is taken--though it is simply horrid considering that _if_--only that she has talked so freely to Army--I think I like 'Army' far better than 'Pet'--Well I mean she's been trying to tell him ever since he first came to call that when she is gone I shall have, all told, in my own right, Five thousand a year. So I took the first opportunity of letting _him_ know that Two thousand a year of that would be held in reserve for the work of the firm and for the Woman's Cause generally.... Look here, I won't babble on much longer.... I know you're dying to make _me_ confidences.... We'll ring for tea to be sent in here, and whilst the waiter is coming and going--Don't they take _such_ a time about it, when they're _de trop_?--we'll talk of ordinary things that can be shouted from the _house tops_.

"I haven't been to the Office for three days. Does everything seem to be going on all right?"

_David_: "Quite all right. Bertie Adams tries dumbly to express in his eyes his determination to see the firm and me through all our troubles and adventures. I wish I could convey a discreet hint to him not to be so _blatantly_ discreet. If there were a Sherlock Holmes about the place he would spot at once that Adams and I shared a secret.... But about Beryl--" (Enter waiter....)

_Honoria_ (to waiter): "Oh--er--tea for two please. Remember it must be China and the still-room maids _must_ see that the water has been fresh-boiled. And b.u.t.tered toast--or if you've got m.u.f.fins...? You have? Well, then m.u.f.fins; and of course jam and cake. And--would you mind--you always try, I know--bringing the things in very quietly--here--? Because Lady Fraser is so easily waked..."

(The Swiss waiter goes out, firmly convinced that Honoria's anxiety for her lady mother is really due to the desire that the mother should not interrupt a flirtation and a clandestine tea.)

_Honoria_: "Well, about Beryl?"

_David_: "Beryl, I should say, is going to become a great woman of business. But for that, and--I think--a curious streak of fidelity to her vacillating architect ('How happy could I be with either,'

don't you know, _he_ seems to feel--just now they say he is living steadily at Storrington with his wife No. 1, who is ill, poor thing) ... but for that and this, I think Beryl would enjoy a flirtation with me. She can't quite make me out, and my unwavering severity of manner. Her cross-questioning sometimes is maddening--or it might become so, but that with both of us--you and me--retiring so much into the background she has to lead such a strenuous life and see one after the other the more important clients. Of course--here's the tea..."

(Brief interval during which the waiter does much unnecessary laying out of the tea until Honoria says: "Don't let me keep you. I know you are busy at this time. I will ring if we want anything.") David continues: "Of course I come in for my share of the work after six.

On one point Beryl is firm; she doesn't mind coming at nine or at eight or at half-past seven in the morning, but she _must_ be back in Chelsea by half-past five to see her babies, wash them and put them to bed. She has a tiny little house, she tells me, near Trafalgar Square, and fortunately she's got an excellent and devoted nurse, one of those rare treasures that questions nothing and is only interested in the business in hand. She and a cook-general make up the establishment. Before Mrs. Architect No. 1 became ill, Mr.