The Oyster Part 32

Sybil would not go to a dance that evening; she pleaded headache, sat in her stuffy room, looking out across the hot slates, thinking.

She was afraid. Who would help her now to pay this man and so get out of his power? She had learned to dread him.

She jumped up suddenly, ran to her writing-table. Old memories crowded back to her, her first years of coming out, when she had been so happy.

She saw the library at the Holbrooks', felt warm young hands on hers, heard a voice saying:

"But if you are ever in any trouble, if you want help, send for me. I shall always be ready."

Her young soldier lover would help her now; and with wet eyes above the paper she wrote on, Sybil knew how she would turn to him again. How gifts of flowers and sweets, expensive dinners and suppers, stolen interviews for tea and subtle flattery, had lost their charm.

She only wrote a few lines, posted it to York, where his regiment was stationed; she wanted his help, urgently; would he come to her _at once_?

So the hot curtain of night fell on another act for Sybil.

Esme had gone home after tea, found Bertie there, resting in the flowerless drawing-room.

With nerves strung up, with her hidden excitement wearing her out, she came to him, threw herself suddenly on her knees beside him, laid her face against his, tried to wake the thrill which the touch of his lips had given her once.

Bertie, surprised, drew her to him, kissing the red mouth.

It had been innocent of lip salve when he had kissed them first; her soft cheeks had not been plastered with expensive creams and powder. As hungry people imagine feasts, so Esme sought for forgetfulness in pa.s.sionate kisses, in new transports of love. Sought--and found no place. It seemed to her that Bertie had grown cold, that he no longer cared for her. He had never been a sensualist, only an honest lover.

Whispered hints of Gore Helmsley's, little stories he had told her, came to her as she rested her cheek against her husband's.

"Dear old Es," he said affectionately, but not pa.s.sionately. "Dear old b.u.t.terfly, it's nice to have my girlie loving again; but we'll be late for dinner if we don't dress quickly. Es, call your maid."

Esme rang listlessly; she hardly knew what she wanted, save that it was something which would wipe away her bitter thoughts.

Through dinner she was recklessly merry, witty in her flas.h.i.+ng way; brilliantly, a little haggardly, pretty. The patches of pink were more p.r.o.nounced on her cheeks, her powder thicker.

Then, driving home in the cool, she remembered Sybil Chauntsey. Here was another woman about to make a mistake, to realize too late, as she had done, that money cannot repay peace of mind. Deep, too, in Esme's mind, was a horror of sinning. She was instinctively pure herself; her ideas set deeply in a bed of conventionality. A girl of Sybil's type would suffer all her life if she once slipped, perhaps afterwards grow completely reckless, look on her one sin as so deadly that a host of others could matter little, and might drown thought.

Esme forgot Sybil until Sunday morning. Angy Beerhaven had proved himself in earnest, had almost insisted on a trip in his new car.

"Bring anyone--your husband and a friend," he said.

Esme had agreed heartily. There was Estelle; she would like the drive.

As the huge cream-coloured Daimler hummed softly at her door, Angy asked where they would go to.

"The sea would be lovely to-day," he said. "Or there are the Downs or the Forest."

"The sea!" Esme shot out swiftly. "The sea!" she said.

"Then Brighton. It's a nice run; there are decent hotels. One only gets cold beef and cutlets in heaps of places."

"Brighton let it be," she said carelessly.

The Daimler seemed a live monster purring as she flew along the smooth roads, laughing at her hills, answering sweetly to her brakes, swinging her great length contemptuously past weaker sisters.

The salt kiss of the sea was on their faces as they dipped into Brighton.

"We'll run out again afterwards," Angy said; "get a good blow."

Esme had been a merry companion on the way down.

Strolling on the front, Esme started suddenly. Sybil might be here; she remembered the conversation now. In the huge place it would be almost impossible to find her. Jimmie would not come to the best-known hotels.

But if she could--it would be worth some trouble.

Esme's fit of boredom vanished. She was full of plans. They would run off for a long run, come back to tea, dine again in Brighton and go home in the cool.

"They'll be quite happy anywhere," she said, nodding towards Estelle and Bertie. "We can go off by ourselves."

Angy's hopes grew deeper. His fatuously ardent glances were more frequent. He whispered eager nonsense to Esme, hinted at happy future drives and meetings, of lending her the car altogether if she liked.

To have a sixty Daimler at one's disposal would be convenient, but as it would generally include Angy Beerhaven as chauffeur, Esme shrugged her shoulders. A taxi suited her better, though she did not say so.

After tea she grew restless; wanted to see other hotels, to inspect Brighton. The Metropole was too crowded.

"Come with me," she said to Angy; "we'll prospect, and telephone here if we find some nest which suits me."

A cabman gave her information.

"Quiet hotels, but smart, nice? He'd tell of one, yes, miss, he would."

It was only as they went on that Esme realized the smirk of innuendo on the man's red face.

"Often driven parties there as wanted to be quiet an' comfabul," said Jehu, taking a s.h.i.+lling graciously. "Thank you, lady, and good luck."

Esme went to two or three places, read the dinner menu carefully, made Angy wonder what restless spirit possessed her, then came to the jarvey's recommendation, a small hotel facing the sea, standing modestly behind a long strip of garden. The garden was full of roses and shrubs, so that the porch was almost concealed.

The lady peering out of the little office was unmistakably French.

"Madame wished to see the dinner menu--but certainly! Madame would want a private room, no doubt; the coffee-room was small and the tables already crowded."

"It is a hotel of private rooms," said Esme to herself. She went on to a small, dimly-lighted veranda, set with huge palms and cunningly-placed nooks. She paused abruptly.

"I must go back! Oh, I must!" said Sybil's voice. "We shall miss the train--please let me."

"My cousin cannot be any time. Most annoying her being out all day.

Don't spoil a perfect day, little Sybil. There's a late train we can catch. Or, better still, hire a car and drive up."

Esme turned swiftly to her somewhat bewildered cavalier.

"Oh, Mr Beerhaven," she said. "Will you go to the telephone--order dinner at the Metropole, and see if they have quails--and peaches. It's the best place, after all. I'll wait here for you. Hurry, or they won't have shot the quails."

Angy left, ruminating on the logic of women.

"But give me my letters," she heard Sybil plead. "Please do! You promised them if I came here to-day."