The Oyster Part 20

He looked out without answering. Something was coming between him and his wife. A rift, opening slowly in the groundwork of their love and happiness. She had changed.

Carteret's papers went in. They settled in London. Esme looked for a house, fretting because she could not find one they could afford. Esme often fretted as cold March was pushed away by April. She was restless, never quiet, unable to spend an hour at home by herself. Everything seemed to cost more than it had. People gave up the little kindnesses which she had counted. She was not paid for at theatres, nor sent flowers and fruit.

"The Carterets must have come into money," people said carelessly.

"Esme's simply gorgeously clothed, and they're looking for a house. Of course he's heir to old Hugh's place now."

More than once Bertie included Estelle Reynolds in their parties. She came, enjoying everything almost childishly; never tired of looking at the London streets with their roaring traffic. Hanging on every word at theatres, openly delighted with the dishes at smart restaurants.

"Everyone is so rich here," said Estelle in wonder. "They pay and pay and pay all round us."

They were lunching at Jules, and Esme had carelessly ordered one or two things out of season. Estelle had watched the gold coins put on the folded bill.

"You would not be so extravagant, I imagine," Esme laughed. She neither liked nor disliked the quiet girl, even found her useful now to do forgotten errands at the shops, to write her letters for her while Esme lounged back smoking, to go off in the rain for a book which must be read immediately. For, wanting anything, Esme could never wait. She snapped at her share of life, to fling it away barely tasted. Estelle came oftener and oftener to the flat. Settled flowers, put out sweets for dinner, had the bridge tables ready, and then went away. She was always useful, always willing to help.

"Extravagant!" Estelle answered. "No, I'd lunch at home."

"Off chops and fried potatoes," said Esme, taking asparagus.

"If you go to the Club mankind invariably lunches off chops and steak,"

broke in Bertie. "Women are the lovers of fluffy dishes; they please 'em, I suppose, as new dresses do, because poor people can't have them."

"Estelle would lunch at home," laughed Esme, "and go in a 'bus to see the shops in Regent Street, or perhaps to the National Gallery or the White City, and come home to make a new savoury which she had seen in _Home Instructions_, and do her accounts after dinner. Eh, little home bird?"

"Yes," said Estelle, simply. "Only I wouldn't live in London at all. I would make the country my stable meal, my chops and fried potatoes, and London my occasional savoury _bonne bouche_. I should choke in a town."

Esme laughed. "How absurd," she flashed out. "Now, be good children. I go to sell pieces of cloth at completely ruinous prices to aid something in distress. I know not what."

"Shall I take you home, Estelle?" Carteret stood looking out into the suns.h.i.+ne. "Lord, what I'd give to live in the country. To see green fields all round and have a horse or two in the winter, and laze over a big log fire when the day was done. But somehow, here, there is never an hour to laze in."

Hugh Carteret, grief stricken, had so far not seen his nephew's wife.

Bertie was doing his work, going down occasionally to see the big places and look over the accounts with the stewards.

About a month after he had come back from South Africa, Esme's first reckoning for extravagance was upon her. Unpaid accounts littered the table. Harrod's deposit was overdrawn. She sat frowning and petulant, as Bertie jotted down totals.

"We can't do it, Esme; there are all the old bills left unpaid. We managed so well before."

Esme smoked furiously, flung the thin papers about. People were robbers, her cook a fool.

"But we are not often in. You weren't even at home. It's beyond one, b.u.t.terfly; debt won't do. And then your frocks and frills."

"I can pay for those," Esme was going to say, then stopped. How much of her five hundred, her scant allowance, had she antic.i.p.ated. Then there would be a visit to Scotland, and she wanted to hunt. She could not spare much of it; fifty of it must go to the French dressmaker, another fifty to a jeweller. "Oh, it's sickening," she flung out in sudden petulant anger. "Sickening. Poverty is too hateful."

Bertie had to listen to an outburst of grumbling, of fretful wrath, because their income was not double its size. To be pinched, cramped when one was young, to be worried by bills, bothered by meannesses.

Bertie Carteret's face grew pale. He stood up, gathering the bills. "I had no idea that you were unhappy, Es," he said slowly. "We used to manage so well before I left. It was all suns.h.i.+ne then. I have some money I can dig out; we'll pay the bills and start again. Give me all yours to see."

Indulgence made Esme penitent, almost grateful. That was right. Now Bertie was a dear, a sweet old boy. And they'd have a lovely summer, just as last year's had been.

She came over and sat on Bertie's knee, her face pressed against his, the perfume of her golden hair in his nostrils.

But with her soft arm about his neck, her supple body in his arms, Bertie Carteret did not hold her closer; she missed his quick sigh at her contact, the hotness of his kisses on her neck.

"Bertie, dear old Bert."

But as she moved her face a little he could see between him and the light the skilfully-applied red on her cheeks, the coating of powder round it. It was not love for him which brought her to him, but selfish relief at being released from worry. "Poor b.u.t.terfly," he said, kissing her gently. "It shall flutter through its summer. But spent capital means less income, Esme, remember that."

"Oh, here's the wine account." He sighed again, looking at it. Esme ran her finger down the items, there were no wholesale prices now. The hock was at its full value, the bill a heavy one. Jumping up, she railed at Luke Holbrook, called him traitor and mean and treacherous. Swore that if she could help it he would not get his peerage.

"The lilies and carnations, madam," said the tall maid, coming in with a bundle of flowers.

"Leave them there, Miss Reynolds will settle them for me, she is coming to lunch. And your Uncle Hugh, Bertie, I had forgotten."

"You'll have to take to cheaper flowers," said Carteret; "after all, they wither just as soon."

"I _cannot_ skimp over flowers, Bert, I cannot." Esme went off to dress.

"What could she skimp over?" Bertie wondered.

Estelle Reynolds came in quietly, smiled good morning, began quite naturally to get the vases ready. "How glorious they are," she said, as she put the long-stemmed forced carnations into slender silver vases.

"They must cost a fortune now."

"They do." Bertie was writing to his broker. "They do, Estelle.

Everything costs a fortune here just now. But we must come to the humble sweet peas next week, or something of its cla.s.s. What a housekeeper you would make, Estelle."

"Would I?" She hid the pain in her soft grey eyes, turned suddenly away. One of the foolish women whose joy lies in sacrifice, who find stupid satisfaction in balanced accounts, in saving for the man who works for them, who in some mysterious way stretches the weekly allowance when the children come, and finds only happiness in the giving up to do it. A homely little brown thrush, looking, wondering at a world of gay-plumaged songless birds.

"I." Estelle's eyes were under her control again. She smiled bravely.

"I am one of the dowdy people who like to mess in the kitchen and dust, value a pleasure for what it costs ... it's childish."

"The fault of the world's inhabitants is that they are stamping out childishness," he said slowly. "They have forgotten to take joy in blue skies and green fields because it costs them nothing to look at them; they are forgetting how to enjoy themselves except in herds. If we have Irish stew at a shooting lunch it must be spoilt by half a dozen expensive flavourings lest my Lady Sue or Madame Sally should say we are so poor that we can only afford mutton and potatoes and onions.

Even the children must have tea at Charbonel's and sweets from Buzzard or Fuller, though possibly a packet of b.u.t.terscotch or home-made toffee would be much more to their taste...."

Estelle laughed.

"I took the Handelle children out last week," she said. "Their mother asked me to--you remember you took me once there to sing and she's been kind to me--and we went on the top of a 'bus, and had tea at Lyon's, bought flowers at Piccadilly Circus, and oh, they did enjoy themselves, but Lady Eva was quite shocked."

"Oh, Estelle, thank you." Esme came back, radiant in clinging black, the emeralds s.h.i.+ning at her bare throat, a big hat framing her face.

Hugh Carteret came just then. An old man, deep lines of sorrow drawn on his face, shrinking visibly from any allusion to his loss, suffering from the grief which finds no relief in words. He was cold before Esme's gush of greeting, looked at her critically and made scant response to her smiles.

"It was so good of him to come, they were hidden away down here. And oh, they did want to change and get a house farther west."

"Why not then?" Hugh Carteret asked.

"The dreadful rents," Esme answered. "We can't afford it. And we _do_ want to move. The flat is so stuffy, so small."

"It seems big enough for two," Colonel Carteret answered, looking hard at Esme. "Of course, if you had children I could understand."