The Brightener Part 25

"Miss Fawcett and I have known each other a good many years," Robert hurried on. "She was once in a play with me, before she found her real _metier_. She kindly comes to see me now and then, when she can take a day off."

"I want to bid you good-bye--if you are really going out of England,"

Opal said.

She had ceased to look at me now, but I went on looking hard at her. She was in what might be a spirit conception of a motor costume: smoke gray velvet, and yards of long, floating veil shot from gray to mauve. She wore a close toque with two little jutting Mercury wings, from behind which those yards of unnecessary chiffon fell. She had a narrow oval face, which Nature and (I thought) Art combined to make pale as pearl.

Her hair, pushed forward by the toque, was so colourless a brown that it looked like thick shadow. She had a beautifully cut, delicate nose, but her lips were thin and the upper one rather long and flat, otherwise she would have been pretty. Even as it was she had a kind of fascination, and I thought her the most graceful, willowy creature I'd ever seen.

"Well," said Robert, "as it happens I've put off going abroad, through a kind of mental laziness. But in the ordinary course of events you'd have come to-day only to find me gone--which would have been a pity. When I answered your letter, I told you----"

"Yes, but I _felt_ you'd still be here," she cut him short. "Apparently the Princess had the same premonition."

"Oh, I just happened to be pa.s.sing," I fibbed, "and took my chance.

Fortunately, I came in the nick of time to give Captain Lorillard a lift to town in my car. It will save him a journey by train."

"Then I am in the nick of time, too!" said Opal. "If I'd been ten minutes later I might have missed him. I felt _that_, too! I told my taxi man to drive at least as fast as the legal limit."

I guessed she was longing to get Robert to herself, and that he was glad there was no chance of it. Was he _really_ going abroad? she wanted to know. Or only just to London for a change?

Robert was restive under her uncanny questionings, but answered that he wasn't quite sure about the future. Travelling in France and Italy seemed to be disagreeable at the moment. Pa.s.sports, too, were a bother.

He'd be more certain of his plans in a few days, and would let her know.

Opal betrayed no crude emotion. Yet I was sure that, under her restrained manner--soft as a gentle breeze on a summer night--she would have enjoyed stamping her foot and having hysterics. Instead, she asked Robert about a psychic play she wanted him to write (he hadn't written a line of it!), told him a little news concerning people they both knew, and bethought herself that she "mustn't keep us."

Not more than twenty minutes after she had floated in Miss Fawcett floated forth again. Robert took her to her taxi, and then could hardly wait to get off in my car. As for me, I'd forgotten all about the d.u.c.h.ess. We chose the longer of the two roads to London, hoping to miss Opal; but soon pa.s.sed her taxi going at a leisurely pace. The Wraith must have had another of her mystic "feelings," and counted on our choice of that turning!

"She says she has 'helpers' from beyond," Robert explained, when we were flying on, far ahead. "She asks their advice, and they tell her what to do in daily life. She wanted to provide me with one or two, but I wasn't 'taking any.' Not that I'm a convinced materialist, or that I don't believe the dark veil can ever be lifted--I'm rather inclined the other way round--but I prefer to manage my own affairs without 'helpers' I've never known or seen on earth. Of course, it would be different if----Oh, you know what I mean. But even then--well, I should be afraid of being deceived. It's better not to begin anything like that when you can't be sure."

"Did Opal Fawcett ever try to persuade you to--to----?" Courage failed me. But Robert understood only too well what was in my mind.

"Yes, she did," he admitted. "She wrote me--after--that awful thing happened. I hadn't heard from her for a long time till then. I'd almost forgotten her existence. She said in the letter that June's spirit had come to her with a message for me."

"_Cheek!_" I exclaimed.

"Well, I'm afraid that's rather the way I felt about it, though probably Opal meant well, and a lot of people think she's wonderful. Several friends begged me in urgent letters to go to Opal Fawcett: a.s.sured me she'd given them indescribable comfort, put them in touch with those they loved who'd 'pa.s.sed on.' But somehow I couldn't be persuaded, Princess. A voice inside me always used to say: 'Why should June want to talk to you through Opal Fawcett? If she can come back, why shouldn't she speak with you direct, instead of through a third person?'"

"That's how I should have argued it out in your place," I agreed.

"And--and June never----?"

"No. She never came, never made me realize her near presence, never seemed to influence me in favour of Opal--though Opal didn't give up till months had pa.s.sed. When she first came after writing to say she must see me, it was to beg me to visit her for _June's sake_. Afterward, when she saw she was making me uncomfortable, she stopped her persuasions. Since then--fairly often when Joyce Arnold was here--she has turned up at the cottage: sometimes just for a friendly chat like an ordinary human being (though I never feel she is one), sometimes to discuss that 'psychic play'--as she calls it--an idea of hers she wants me to work out for the stage."

"Is it a good idea?" I wanted to know.

"Yes. Mysterious and dramatic at the same time. Yet I've always made excuses. I don't fancy collaborating with Miss Fawcett, though that may sound ungrateful."

It didn't, to my ears, especially as Opal's object seemed transparent as the depths of her own crystal. Of course she was still in love with Robert, and had seized first one chance, then another, of getting into touch with him. I was rather sorry for her, in a vague, impersonal way; for to love Robert Lorillard and lose him would hurt. I could realize that, without the trouble and pain of being seriously in love with him myself.

"It's a good thing," I thought, "that Joyce Arnold's stopping with me at this time and not with Opal Fawcett! It would be as much as the girl's life is worth to be engaged to Robert in _that_ house!"

Could Opal suspect, I wondered, the truth about the broken love story?

Somehow I thought not. I might be mistaken, but the rather patronizing way in which she'd spoken of Joyce didn't seem like that of a jealous woman. If Joyce and she had got upon each other's nerves lately because of Robert, I imagined that suspicion had been on the other side. Joyce would have been more than human if she could go on accepting hospitality from a woman who so plainly showed her love for Robert Lorillard.

We raced back to London, for I feared that Robert's mood might change for the worse--that an autumn chill of remorse might s.h.i.+ver through his veins.

All was well, however--very well. I made him talk to me of Joyce nearly the whole way; and at the end of the journey I had him waiting for her in the drawing room of my flat before he quite knew what had happened to him.

My secretary was in her own room, writing her own letters as she'd said she would do.

"Back already, Princess?" she exclaimed, jumping up when I'd knocked and been told to come in. "Why, you've hardly more than had time to get there and back, it seems, to say nothing of lunch!"

"I haven't had any lunch," I said.

"No lunch? Poor darling! Why----"

"I was too busy," I broke in. "And I wanted to get back."

"Only this morning you were longing to go!"

"I know! It does sound chameleon-like. But second thoughts are often best. Come into the drawing room and you'll see that mine were--much best."

She came, in all innocence. I opened the door. I thrust her in. I exclaimed: "Bless you, my children!" and shut the two in together.

This was taking it boldly for granted that Joyce was as much in love with Robert as he with her. But why be early Victorian and ignore the lovely, naked truth, instead of late Georgian and save beating round the bush for both of the lovers?

Those words of mine figuratively flung them into each other's arms, where--according to my idea--the sooner they were the better!

I should think if my words missed fire, their eyes didn't miss, judging from what I'd seen in hers when speaking of him, in his when speaking of her! And certainly the pair of them couldn't have wasted _much_ time in foolish preliminaries; for in about half an hour Joyce appeared in the dining room, where I was eating an _immense_ luncheon.

"Oh, Princess!" she breathed, hovering just over the threshold; and instantly Robert loomed behind her. "It's too wonderful. It can't be true."

Robert didn't speak. He merely gazed. Years had rolled off him since morning. He looked an inspired boy, with a dash of silver powder on his hair. Slipping his arm round Joyce's waist he brought her to me. As I sat at the table they both knelt down close to my feet, and each earnestly kissed one of my hands! It would have been a beautiful effect if I hadn't choked, trying wildly to bolt a mouthful of something, and had to be slapped on the back. That choke was a disguised blessing, however, for it made us all laugh when I got my breath; and when you're on the top pinnacle of a great emotion, it's a safe outlet to laugh!

My suggestion was, that n.o.body but our three selves should share the secret, and that the wedding--to be hurried on--should be sprung as a surprise upon the public. Robert and Joyce agreed on general principles; but each made one exception.

Robert said that he felt it would be "caddish" to make a bid for happiness without telling the d.u.c.h.ess of Stane what was in his mind. She couldn't reasonably object to his marrying again, and wouldn't object, he argued; but if he didn't confide in her she'd have a right to think him a coward.

Joyce's one exception--of all people on earth!--was Opal Fawcett! And when I shrieked "Why?" she'd only say that she "owed a debt of grat.i.tude to Opal." Therefore Opal had a right to know before any one else that she was engaged.

The girl didn't add "to Robert Lorillard," but a flash of intuition like a searchlight showed me the meaning behind her words. Living in the same house with Opal, eating Opal's bread and salt (very little else, I daresay!), Joyce had guessed Opal's secret--or had been forced to hear a confidence. That, and nothing else, was the reason why she wouldn't be engaged to Robert "behind Opal's back!"

Well, I hope I'm not precisely a coward myself, but I didn't envy Joyce Arnold and Robert Lorillard their self-appointed tasks. They were carried out, however, with soldierly promptness the day after the engagement, and nothing terrific happened--or at least, was reported.

"Opal was very sweet," Joyce announced, vouchsafing no details of the interview.

"The--d.u.c.h.ess was very sensible," was Robert's description of what pa.s.sed between him and his exalted ex-mother-in-law.

"I suppose you asked them not to tell?" was my one question.

"Oh, Opal _won't_ tell!" exclaimed Joyce; and I believed that she was right. According to Opal's view, _telling_ things only helped them to happen.