Bird of Paradise Part 19

CHAPTER XII

A LOVE SCENE

Percy waited on and on, minute after minute, half-hour after half-hour, reading the morning papers, staring with apparent deep interest at the pictures in the weekly journals--rather depressing foreshortened snapshots of society at racecourses. These people, caught unawares, seemed to be all feet and parasols, or smiles and m.u.f.fs. Then, feeling rather exhausted, he ordered a drink, and forgot it, and smoked a cigarette. When he saw anyone he knew, he put on an absent-minded air, and avoided the friend's eye. He looked at his watch as if in sudden anxiety, and found that it was half-past one. This was the time he was to meet his little brother at Prince's. He made inquiries and found that Nigel was expected to lunch at the club. It was horrible! He could not leave the boy at the restaurant waiting for him, and he was not up to the mark either, at the moment, for seeing Nigel Hillier; he felt as if the top of his head had been smashed in. Yet his common-sense and reasoning power gradually prevailed over his emotion. And as he sat there, Percy changed his mind.

At first he had thought it would be cowardly to her to attack his wife on the subject; it was the man with whom he should quarrel. And now it seemed to him different. His point of view altered. It seemed only fair now to give Bertha herself a chance of explaining matters. Thinking of her fresh, frank expression that morning, and looking back, he began to have, by some sort of second sight, a vision of his own stupid injustice. No! he must have been wrong! Nigel may have been a scoundrel, or--anything--but it couldn't be Bertha's fault. She may have been imprudent, out of pure innocence; that was all.

He got up, and now he decided to take his brother out to lunch, and then go back and talk to Bertha.

During the noisy, crowded lunch at Prince's, which entertained the boy so much that there was no necessity for the elder brother to talk, Percy came to a firm decision.

He would never tell Bertha anything at all about the anonymous letters.

He would tell her that he had seen her this morning at the gallery--as if by accident; but he would frankly admit a jealousy, even a suspicion of Nigel.

He would ask Bertha in so many words not to see Nigel again.

If she would agree to this, and if she were as affectionate as formerly, what did the rest matter? The letters must have been slanders; who _could_ have written them? But, after all, what did it matter? If Bertha consented to do as he asked, they were untrue, and that was everything.

He and Bertha would drop Hillier, and he would put the whole horrible business behind him; he would wipe it out, and forget it. The mere thought of such joy made him tremble ... it seemed too glorious to be real, and as they approached the house again he began to believe in it.

Clifford had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He felt quite grown-up as he parted with Percy at Sloane Street, and drove home, singing to himself the refrain of Pickering's favourite song: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck would chuck wood?"

"Percy, what is the matter?" Bertha asked anxiously, as she looked at him.

He had gone through a great deal that morning and looked rather worn out. ... He spoke in a lower voice than usual.

"Look here, Bertha," he said, "I have something to tell you."

She waited, then, at a pause, said, rather pathetically:

"Oh, Percy, do tell me what it is? I've felt so worried about you lately. You seem to be changed. ... I have felt very pained and hurt.

Tell me what it is."

Percy looked at her. She was looking sweet, anxious and sincere. She leant forward, holding out her little hand. ... If this was not genuine, then nothing on earth ever could be!

"Tell me, Percy," she repeated, looking up at him, as he stood by the fire, with that little movement of her fair head that he used to say was like a canary.

Percy looked down at her; all his imposingness, all his air of importance, and his occasional tinge of pompousness, had entirely vanished. He was simple, angry and unhappy.

"I found I hadn't got to go to chambers early this morning after all, so I walked down Bond Street. I went into the Grosvenor Gallery. I saw you there. ... It seemed very strange you hadn't told me. Why didn't you?

Why didn't you? Bertha, don't tell me anything that isn't true!"

Her eyes sparkled. She stood up beaming radiant joy. She went to him impulsively; everything was all right; he was jealous!

"Oh, Percy! I can explain it all."

Hastily, eagerly, impulsively, with the most obvious honesty and frankness, she told him of how Nigel had promised to help her with Madeline, of how he had planned with her to make Madeline happy; she told him of the variable and unaccountable conduct of Rupert Denison to Madeline, of his marked attention at one moment, his coldness at another. Foolishly, she had been led to believe that Nigel could make things all right. Now this morning Nigel had asked her to meet him to tell her that Rupert had been seen choosing hats for another girl.

Bertha was in doubt whether she ought to tell Madeline, and make her try and cure her devotion. And Bertha had thought it all the kinder of Nigel because his brother, Charlie, was very much in love with her.

Percy stopped her in the middle of the story. He could take no sort of interest in it at present. He was much too happy and relieved; he was in the seventh heaven.

"Yes ... yes ... all right, dear. Only you oughtn't to have made an appointment with him. Only promise that never again---- You see, things can be misconstrued. And, anyhow, I don't like to see you with Nigel Hillier. Frankly, I can't stand it. You'll make this sacrifice for me--if it is one, Bertha?"

He had quite decided to conceal all about the letters.

"Indeed, indeed I will; and I know I was wrong," she said. "I mean it's no good trying to help people too much. They must play their own game.

You understand, don't you? Nigel was only to show me a letter he had written inviting the other girl to lunch--to take her away from Rupert.

But it's all nonsense, and I'll have nothing more to do with it."

"Then that's all right," said Percy, sitting down, with a great sigh of relief.

"You didn't really think for a moment, seriously, that I ever--that I didn't--oh, you never stopped knowing how much I love you?" she asked, with tears in her eyes.

Percy said that he had not exactly thought that. Also, he was not jealous--that was not the word--he merely wished her to promise never to see or speak to Nigel again as long as they lived, and never to recognise him if she met him: that was all. He was perfectly reasonable.

"It's perhaps a little bit difficult in some ways, dearest. But I promise you faithfully to do my very, very best. And this I absolutely swear--I will never see him without your approving and knowing all about it. But as I shouldn't exactly like him to think you thought anything--I mean--I think you must leave it a little to me--to my tact, to get rid of him; and trust me. And I want you to know that I shouldn't care if I never saw him again. I don't even like him. And I really don't think he cares for me; I'm quite certain it's your fancy."

"Can you give me your word of honour that he never----"

"Never, by word or look," answered Bertha.

"That's all right," said Percy.

Bertha sat on the arm of his chair and leant her head against his shoulder.

At that moment he thought he had never known what happiness was before.

Then she said:

"It's all right now, then, Percy? That was all, and the cloud's gone?"

"Quite, absolutely," he answered, mentally tearing the letters into little bits.

Then she said:

"Percy, of course you never really thought ... you never could think that I meant to deceive you in any way. ... But supposing Nigel had had any treacherous ideas--let us say, supposing that Nigel, though he's married, and all that--suppose you found out that he had liked me, and wanted to spoil our happiness? ... I mean, suppose you found out that he had been making love to me? ... What would you have done?"