The Oyster Part 15

But Mr Holbrook was content. He was getting on. He did kind things which he concealed rigorously, and he did generous things for his own benefit, and his peerage loomed ahead.

"My dear love," said Holbrook, coming into the library. He had furnished the shelves with first editions of various authors whom no one ever read. Statues stood, coldly graceful in corners, gleaming white against the brown background. The library table carried a writing set of leather worked in gold. Grace Holbrook was dictating letters to her secretary, a slim girl with a pink nose and an irritated expression.

"My dear," said Holbrook. "Do you think--?" He paused.

"You can go, Miss Harris," said Mrs Holbrook.

"Do you think," he said--"hum, Critennery has a little weakness ... she dances at the Magnificent, in some gauze ... that we could have her down. Lady Ermyntrude is not coming."

"We couldn't," said Mrs Holbrook, hastily. "The d.u.c.h.ess is coming."

"Well, it's quite his little weakness and he can do as he likes," said Holbrook, mournfully. "I do want Henry to be Lord Regis, my love. It's just to dance on Sat.u.r.day. I would arrange with Hewson of the Magnificent. And dancers are so fas.h.i.+onable."

"My dear Luke, the d.u.c.h.ess of Dulls.h.i.+re will be here," said his wife, firmly, "and the Trents, and Lord Frensham. We couldn't. The d.u.c.h.ess was at the Magnificent, I remember seeing it mentioned--she must have seen the woman without any ... that is dancing."

"She is so very graceful," said Luke. "Well, my love, of course if we cannot. But artistes do go everywhere now. She lunches with Lady Ermyntrude, and I thought that her presence, combined with a present of those Angel bulb roots; but if you object ... well, it's quite a little weakness, my love. Critennery would have liked to talk to Mavis Moover."

Mrs Holbrook wavered visibly. "If the d.u.c.h.ess had not been in front,"

she said; "still, she's very blind and won't wear gla.s.ses; she may not have noticed the gauze. I don't want our party to be spoilt, Luke, but--"

"Think it over, my love," said Holbrook, going out. "Think it over. And there's Jimmie Gore Helmsley coming. I see his name down. I don't like him, Gracie. He's a bad 'un, my love."

"He goes everywhere. He's running a horse," said Mrs Holbrook. "That long-legged bay thing we saw galloping to-day. People say it will win.

He goes everywhere, Luke."

"So much the worse," said Mr Holbrook, "for everywhere."

Something had happened to the motor Esme was going out in--a tyre had punctured as it was starting and the chauffeur gave warning of an hour's delay. Esme yawned, waiting in the over-heated hall.

Bertie would be home in a week; she would want more wine at cost price from her host. Seeing him come out she flashed a friendly smile at him.

She asked him to send her some.

But Luke Holbrook, who had been glad to help a pretty girl in a tiny flat, saw no reason for losing a profit to a woman in magnificent sables.

"Want more hock?" he said. "The same as last, eh? Yes, I told you to ask me--but it's gone up--gone up, and whisky too, and port.... I'll send it on to you. Kind of me. It's my business, pretty lady, my business. No bother at all."

Esme did not realize that he meant to charge her full price.

"We've had such a hunt, we came back early." Sybil Chauntsey ran into the hall in her habit, young Knox close behind her. Mrs Holbrook approved of love. She had asked them together. "Oh, such a run,"

babbled Sybil. "And my chestnut was glorious, the dear."

"Jimmie always said that the chestnut was his best horse." Mousie Cavendish's thin lips curved in a spiteful smile.

Young Knox started, looked at Sybil.

"I thought it was your own horse," he said gravely.

"Captain Gore Helmsley lent him to me for the season. I call him mine.

I thought that you knew."

"No, I did not." The young soldier seemed to have forgotten his gallop; he looked tired and put out.

"The car, madam, is ready." A butler who bore the mark of experience stamped upon his impa.s.sive face came forward. Esme fastened her coat, asked for a companion--Mrs Cavendish would come. Her spiteful tongue made light strokes at reputations as the car hummed along. No one escaped. No one was immune. She had come to drive to find out who had given Esme the coat, for the fair girl had never made herself auspicious.

"Met heaps of nice things abroad, I s'pose.... Why didn't you order a limousine, Esme? I hate the wind in these open things ... heaps of princes, I suppose, and rich potentates, didn't you, in your travels?"

"Heaps," said Esme. "At least we must have seen them sometimes."

"Funniest thing rus.h.i.+ng off like that for all these months, so unlike Denise Blakeney. It didn't agree with you, Esme; it made you thin, and different somehow."

"The climate," Esme said, flus.h.i.+ng a little.

"And fancy Denise not coming home for the event, trusting herself to foreign doctors and nurses."

"She did not intend to stay," Esme answered. "She meant to be back."

"I saw the son and heir. A great fat thing, fair like Cyril. Well, it settles all the difficulties then. Denise doesn't play the _role_ of devoted mother; she says the baby bores her."

A sudden wave of anger shook Esme--fear for her child--it might be neglected, grow up unloved. Then they stopped at the toy shop at Regis.

"A parcel for Mrs Holbrook," she said to the man. Obsequious a.s.sistants ran out to the Coombe Regis motors.

A hunting man, still in his splashed pink, stopped them. He, too, was full of the great run.

"Coming out to-morrow to Welcombe," he said. "We're all training down."

Esme's face clouded.

"I can't afford it. I owe the man twenty pounds. I've done two days this week."

A year ago Esme would have almost expected a horse offered to her.

Major Jackson had fifteen of them; she had only to look appealing then, talked of poverty, and horses came as from the clouds.

Now he too looked at her coat. Its owner could not want help.

"Other engagements," he chaffed lightly. "You're losing your keenness, Mrs Carteret. Fact."

Esme turned away ill-humouredly. They drove back to Coombe Regis, the open car humming through the cool spring afternoon. Mousie Cavendish questioning, surmising, as they went.

The palm court was crowded now, part.i.tions had been knocked away, a room thrown in to make it large enough; there was no gathering round for tea. Trays were placed on the little gla.s.s-topped satinwood tables.

Hot biscuits and scones were kept hot on electric heaters. The butler laid a species of buffet covered with huge iced cakes, and relays of sandwiches if the supplies on each tray were not sufficient.

"Only one thing required--cold roast beef and plum pudding," Mousie said ill-naturedly, as she looked at it. The tea-pots were all silver gilt, the little piles of cakes and sandwiches rested on real lace. In the drawing-room Mrs Holbrook gathered her dullest guests at a table, where she poured out tea herself, away from the more clouded atmosphere of the hall.

Several expensive toy dogs sat about on the blue and gold brocade and ate sc.r.a.ps of cake merely to oblige the guests.

They dined off minced chicken and fillet of beef, and breakfasted off cream and grape nuts. Mr Holbrook liked them because he had paid three hundred for Li Chi the pug, and two for Holboin Santoi the pomeranian.

"Luke," said Mrs Holbrook, taking her second cup of chilly tea. "Luke, I think we could do it; the d.u.c.h.ess may never know who she is."