If Only etc. Part 9

Jack Chetwynd took the slender trembling hand in his with G.o.d knows what of anguish and pity stirring at his heart.

"Good-bye--Bella."

And the door fell to.

She was gone.

He could hear her hollow cough as she pa.s.sed down the tesselated corridor.

CHAPTER VI.

It was two days later. Sir John Chetwynd sat in his big easy chair with an open letter before him. "We are surprised to have seen and heard nothing of you," wrote the d.u.c.h.ess; "more especially as after the few words we had in private upon a certain important matter, I fully antic.i.p.ated an early visit from you. But such a busy man as yourself and one so much in request, both socially and professionally, must not be judged by the rules which govern the common herd, I suppose; at the same time (although I a.s.sure you she has not said a word upon the subject) I can say that dear Ethel feels herself a wee bit neglected. You must have been _professionally_ engaged last night, I presume, since we were obliged to dine without you and go to see Sarah Bernhardt alone."

He had spent the whole evening in his consulting rooms, totally forgetting his promise to escort his _fiancee_ and her mother to the theatre.

Well, he would see them both on the morrow and make his peace, and then--he dropped his head on his hands and fairly groaned. It was useless to argue with himself, to bring commonsense to bear upon the point, to count up the advantages to be derived from this union with Lady Ethel; look at it which way he would, the fact remained the same, that he had no longer the remotest desire to marry again.

The knowledge had certainly come tardily, but not the less surely.

He did not, he told himself, love Lady Ethel as a man should love the wife of his bosom. Middle-aged, worn, and unemotional though he might be, he knew that he was yet capable of a much deeper feeling than she had evoked and he had wakened to a realisation of this since he had again seen Bella.

He was no fool; he was, on the contrary, a shrewd, clever, quick-witted man of the world and it was impossible to shut his eyes to the trouble. He thought of Bella as she was when he had first married her; he recalled their courts.h.i.+p, her pretty half shy, half tender ways--the girlish prettiness which time had turned into shame.

She had left a sc.r.a.p of lace on his table for her throat or her veil--Heaven knew what--and his eyes grew blurred and dim as he gazed at it. He repeated mentally phrases which had fallen from her, piecing them together and trying to weave the pattern of her life out of the fragments.

She had changed pathetically. She had acquired the manner that her sister used to have, and which he had so strenuously objected to--the slangy, devil-may-care tone, the total absence of which in the old days had made his little sweetheart so conspicuously different from her environment. She wore now the impress of evil, from her Regent Street hat to her Paris gown. Manifestly she had risen in her vocation, but he knew that her salary alone had never supplied the costume or the rings, and his heart ached.

That night he sat at the d.u.c.h.ess of Huddersfield's table facing his _fiancee_, and for the first time he wondered if sang-froid or perfect equanimity were all that a man such as himself might desire.

She was, as Bella had put it, "One of his own cla.s.s--a lady," which she had never been, poor Bella! but he did wonder just a little how much of real heart beat under the dainty laces that shrouded Lady Ethel's bosom. He had reflected once and not so long ago that that portion of a woman's anatomy was superfluous, but he wavered in his belief now. He could stake his professional honour, his hopes of eternity--of--everything--on the absolute purity of this girl; nothing would ever tempt Lady Ethel to swerve ever so little from the path of rect.i.tude and decorum. The cold, proud patrician face spoke for itself, and yet--he was in a brown study when the voice of his prospective mother-in-law brought him out of the clouds.

"And now," she said in a significant tone and with a glance full of meaning, "now I suppose you young people have lots to talk about, and will forgive me if I run away."

And the silken draperies swept themselves across the floor and the door closed softly upon her Grace.

Ethel lay back in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face.

There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly--and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then--somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; each sat silent.

Sir John felt rather than saw his companion yawn behind her fan, and realised desperately that he must break the silence.

"Ethel," he said gently; "I am old compared with yourself, and grave and sad even beyond my years; are you sure I can make your future happy?"

She looked at him with a good deal of surprise, and a frown puckered her smooth brow.

"Why not? Why should we wish for rhapsodies and commonplace love-making? We can leave all that to the Chloes and Daphnes of a by-gone age. It would be boring to the last degree. One must take pleasure just as much as sorrow, with a certain amount of equanimity.

If there is one thing more than another that I hate, it is to be ruffled. Emotion of any sort ages a girl so terribly."

The sword would never wear out the scabbard so far as Lady Ethel was concerned! He doubted if she were capable of any great depth of feeling. But he did not say now as he would have done a week ago--"So much the better;" he no longer felt that it was altogether desirable.

He looked at her more scrutinisingly than he had ever done before, and for the first time he told himself that the beautifully moulded mouth was hard and unloving, and that the chin spoke of self-will and an amount of resolution unusual in such a young girl.

He hastened to change the subject.

"You would like to visit Switzerland or Italy?" he asked.

"No; I don't care for scenery much, or nature! I like human nature best; it is much more interesting, I consider. I should prefer Paris or Vienna."

"Then Paris or Vienna let it be, by all means," he hastened to reply, and Lady Ethel smiled, well pleased.

"Mamma," said Sir John's _fiancee_ an hour or two later, when mother and daughter were alone. "Do you know who Mrs. Chetwynd was?"

"My dear Ethel, it is much better that subject should not be discussed."

"I don't agree with you. Since I am going to marry John it can only be right and proper that I should be made aware of every detail connected with his former marriage."

When Lady Ethel adopted that tone, her mother knew by past experience that it was a saving of time and temper to yield.

"I only know that she was beneath him in position--a dancer, I believe, and she ran away with someone else. Really providential, I consider; it must have been a happy release for poor Sir John."

"He was plain Mr. Chetwynd."

"Yes; but already very popular. It was exceedingly fortunate that he did not get his baronetcy earlier, for had he done so, she would probably have refused to be faithless."

"I wonder if he felt her desertion much?"

"The world says not; they had lived unhappily for some time before, and the general impression was that he did not care in the least."

"But you spoke of her to him when he asked your consent to our marriage?"

"Yes, Ethel, I did; I referred to it as delicately as possible, of course. I believe I said, 'your early misfortune,' or something to that effect."

"And what did he say?"

"Well, he spoke very nicely; he said he was aware that it added to the disparity between a man in his position and my daughter."

"And you?"

"I believe I replied that because a bad woman had caused him misery and suffering in the past, it was no reason why he should not win and hold the love of a good girl, and that because of the sorrow he had endured, I felt the more a.s.sured in trusting my child's happiness into his keeping."

"That was sweet of you, mother; but did it not occur to you that there was just--a little risk?"

"How?"

"I don't think that John is a man who would forget easily."

"Good Heavens, child! what do you mean? you cannot doubt the sincerity of his protestations of affection for you, surely?"