The Oyster Part 16

"Do you really, my love?" said Holbrook, briskly. "Then I'll write to her manager and to her, enclosing a note from you. She will go so well with the bulbs--Critennery must be pleased."

Esme had found a pile of letters waiting for her, long envelopes containing accounts rendered. She did not know where her money had gone to. Nothing seemed paid for.

She was going to her room, walking on carpets so thick that her feet sank into them, with all the silence of riches round her, doors which opened and shut noiselessly, deadened footsteps, when she stopped startled.

"Ah, Madame!" Marie, her late maid, smiled at her. "Ah, Madame." Marie was enchanted. She had regretted so that Madame had been obliged to part with her.

"I am with Milady Goold, Madame, and I see Madame has not been well; she is looking delicate, then."

"It was Italy." Esme was nervous before the Frenchwoman, whose brown eyes looked at her with a curious shrewdness.

"Madame had much travelling with Milady Blakeney? I have been to Reggio, Madame; I have a cousin there."

Esme turned swiftly to her door to hide her white cheeks. She recovered in a moment. Even if Marie did write or go there, there was nothing to find out. "Yes--it's a dull place, Marie," she said. "And when you're out of a place come back to me. Watson cannot do hair, Marie."

Marie went away smiling--a curious little smile. "There was something curious in all that," she said softly. "Something, but yes, strange--and one day I, Marie, will find it out."

The races were to be on Tuesday. Sat.u.r.day saw Coombe Regis with every room full. The Cabinet minister felt himself over-honoured in one of the huge state rooms, where the old carved bedstead had been left, and all the electric lights did not seem to dispel the shadows.

"Kind of thing queens died in," said the minister as he took a long walk from his bed to the dressing-table.

The d.u.c.h.ess occupied another vast chamber, made incongruously modern by a low bedstead representing a lily, and bought for a fabulous sum from France. "Absurd," said Her Grace, as she poked into the down pillows and lace-edged sheets arrayed among the inlaid petals. "Also it can't have proper springs."

Her Grace of Dulls.h.i.+re was a large lady of philanthropic tendencies.

She kept a herd of prize cows which she sold to her friends for large sums, and prize hens, and she knew a horse when she saw one, so had come for the races. She also liked bridge, when she won. The d.u.c.h.ess was a leader of society, one fully aware of the fact. Her deep voice had power to slide an ambitious clamberer back over the edge of the cliff which she had scaled with difficulty. To be asked to Dullengla Court, where one dined off beef soup, boiled cod, roast mutton, cabbage or turnips, and rice moulds, was to be marked as with an order. The Duke never visited, and the Marquis of Boredom, their son, had so far not been allowed to marry. He had, greatly against his will, been included in this house-party, it being an unfortunate fact that his taste was for attractive ladies on the stage. "I would allow you to marry Lady Sukey Ploddy," said his mother when they got to the door of Coombe Regis; "she will be here." The palm court was brilliant to-night. Shaded lights glowed through the artificial leaves, showing chiffons and satins, laces and silks, and the black-and-white dinner armour of mankind. Rare jewels flashed, faint scents made the air fragrant.

The Cabinet minister, coming down just before dinner, stood on the d.u.c.h.ess's toe in his surprise at catching sight of a dark moving face and a supple, slight form.

"Mavis," said the minister, blankly.... "Oh, so sorry, d.u.c.h.ess. I hope it didn't hurt. Did Homburg last year, y'know. Now if it had been before that...."

The d.u.c.h.ess's hop to a chair shook the palm court. Her only son, coming down in almost painfully well-made clothes, was confiding his woes to a friend. "Absolutely rotten bein' caught for it. Scarcely a girl to speak to, and if there is she'll be off with some Johnny she knew before. Nothin' but Ploddys and that spiteful Cavendish, and oh, hang, rot all round, y'know. Yes, mamma."

"Who?" said the d.u.c.h.ess, "who, Francis, is that nice-looking girl in black?"

"Gracious!" said Lord Boredom. "Lord! it isn't," he paused ... "her name is Moover, mother," he said blandly--"Moover."

"American," summed up the d.u.c.h.ess, accepting her host's arm. Mrs Holbrook sorted the vast party every evening and paired them off for dinner.

Lord Boredom received Lady Sukey Ploddy's substantial hand upon his coat sleeve, and intelligently remarked, "Eh oh, Imagin," when she told him she was looking forward to the races.

The minister took in his hostess, and found the dancer at their table for four. "I like this," said Miss Moover contentedly, taking caviare.

"Nice of 'em to ask me, wasn't it? Old Luke--"

"That's your hostess," said the minister, hurriedly. The magnificence of dinner descended upon them and the food. One reached for fish beneath a truffle-spangled vest of sauce; one poked at a snowy tower and found that upon the menu it was harmless chicken in disguise. If the cook did not earn her salary by spending money on elaboration she would be speedily replaced.

Gay voices, light laughter, rang up to the vaulted roof. Armies of powdered footmen moved deftly among the tables. The celebrated Holbrook wines were poured out lavishly.

One finished with bad coffee and took choice of a dozen liqueurs, the blue haze of smoke floating around the heated air. Huge golden boxes, initialled and becrested, stood on the tables, filled with cigars and cigarettes; the butler, faintly proud of so much wasted money, stood for a moment before he left. Red bars gleamed along the s.h.i.+ning mahogany from the rich ruby of the port.

The dull people drifted away with their hostess to the drawing-room to read and work and gossip, but the d.u.c.h.ess lingered in the palm court waiting for her son.

"A very nice-looking girl," said Her Grace. "Miss Moover, I think I have seen you somewhere."

"Perhaps," said Mavis, civilly. "Perhaps, d.u.c.h.ess."

Lord Boredom, who had quite woke up, sn.i.g.g.e.red softly; for the rest of the evening the Cabinet minister, who was a philosopher, realized the power of youth over mere prestige as he watched the Marquis of Boredom devote himself to a demure-looking girl in black, with the manifest approval of his mother.

A gentle feeler to Miss Moover, whose real name was Harris, had resulted in a frank avowal from that young lady that at present her income was several hundreds a week. "And all my own," said Mavis, a little sadly, for she had come to London to work for a mother who had died before her daughter grew famous.

There were a dozen little dramas played out under the high roof--comedy, tragedy, drama, to each its caste, its players and its audience.

Young Oliver Knox's bright face had lost its gaiety. He was a mere everyday soldier, awkward of speech because he loved deeply and pitted against Gore Helmsley, who woke to the game because there was a new chance of losing it. With his black eyes full of the admiration he knew how to throw into them, his words laden with subtle compliment, he followed pretty Sybil, slipped her away from her fretting lover, took her to play bridge, and praised her mistakes as flashes of genius.

The girl was fl.u.s.tered as she found herself playing against Mrs Cavendish and Dolly Frensham, two gamblers of repute. She saw the scores added and settled, heard Jimmie say carelessly that she could settle with him next day, and scarcely knew what she had lost. Esme flashed careless answer to Gore Helmsley's cool greeting; he had done with her, and yet his coolness hurt. Comedy was played in the palm court, played next day after breakfast, with Miss Mavis Moover as its heroine. The d.u.c.h.ess was quite charmed with her, accepting certain little frivolities as merely transatlantic. Mavis displayed a worthy interest in cows, and was not averse to philanthropy. "You'd be happy in a simple country place," said the d.u.c.h.ess, referring to the vast house with at least ten sitting-rooms, in three of which they camped out.

"I think so," said Mavis, quietly. "I guess so, if I liked the people."

"My love," said Luke Holbrook on Monday morning. "It hasn't quite worked, my love. I fear our hope in the Cabinet has not had the time we intended him to. I fear that nosey boy of the d.u.c.h.ess's has put his foot in the pie," said Luke, sadly.

"Luke!" said his wife.

"Fallen into the dish. All the same, my love. Critennery is leaving to-day."

"He can travel by the same train as his fancy," said Mrs Holbrook, placidly.

The great man, urbanely gracious, came to make his adieux. Holbrook looked at him apologetically. "You will travel up then with Miss Moover," said Mrs Holbrook, brightly; "she leaves this morning."

The Cabinet minister drew on his grey gloves carefully, then adjusted the fingers slowly.

"Lord Boredom," he said, "is motoring Miss Moover to Town just in time for her performance. Good-bye again. So many thanks for a charming visit." He turned to his host with a smile. "Come to me directly you come up," he said. "If you want that baronetcy."

"In the outside lot again," said Holbrook, lugubriously. "But he's a good sort, he may understand, my love."

The races played their part. Gore Helmsley, a splendid rider, won easily, cantering in five lengths in front, his long figure looking its best on horseback, his dark face glowed when he rode. Young Knox's horse fell; the boy came in muddy, shaken, sad in mind, because it was a jostle with his rival which had knocked him down.

Sybil gathered some gold gaily. Jimmy had put a tenner on for her. With a girl's folly she feasted her eyes on tinsel, turning away from the duller mint of hall-marked gold. Here the curtains might fall on a tragedy, fall hurriedly, for the chief actress would have to smile and call it comedy to her audience if she was ever to appear again on Society's stage.

Sybil came laughing to one of the smaller sitting-rooms that evening, a room warm, softly lighted, one ordered as one chose at Coombe Regis.

She was having tea then with Gore Helmsley.

"No one will look for us here," he had said as he rang the bell. "Let's have a quiet half-hour. Talk to me, little pal, I'm tired."

Over the indifferent tea, poured out of a gilt teapot, Sybil smiled gaily, held out her day's winnings--twenty pounds.

"See, I owe you money for bridge, for two nights. Take it. I hope there's enough to pay. I did play stupidly."

Jimmie pushed back the pile of gold. "My dear, you lost eighty pounds.

What does it matter--that can stand over. I paid the Cavendish for you; she's a cat and would talk."