The Oyster Part 39

Sir Thomas, ordering tea, first called the unknown an impossible bounder, and then let his blue beads rest on Esme with some surprise in them.

"Don't exactly wonder either," he said. "Dress very fine, ain't it?

Hubby over with you?"

"No," Esme answered, irritably.

"Oh!" A comprehensive pause. "Let me know when to sheer off then. I'm doing nothing. Just over to look round. Lots of things to look at, eh?

over here. Same sort look like peaches in the apple-house over in London."

Sir Thomas drank his tea. Esme knew that in his shrewdly lewd little mind he quite believed that she had come to Paris to meet someone--looked on it as merely natural. Sir Thomas knew one code of life, and love had never come to make him wish he had not believed in it thoroughly.

He talked on lightly; with him no wife was faithful, no man a keeper of his marriage vow. He told of little scandals pleasantly; they were nothing in his eyes.

"She was very nearly caught that time. d.i.c.ky Margrave rolled up quite unexpectedly and milady had the forbidden fruit in her boudoir. She told him to turn his back and take off his coat, and clean the windows.

'Horrible mess in here, d.i.c.ky,' she said. 'Man's just finis.h.i.+ng the windows. Come to the library.' The forbidden one walked out boldly two minutes later."

"But the servants?" said Esme.

"Oh, if they tell, they go; also, they won't get other places; they keep quiet all right. Betty Margrave told me that herself. She's got d.i.c.ky in order now; he's afraid of reprisals about Caromeo."

So from story to story, a male Vivien carelessly blackening reputation.

Esme told him so, growing impatient.

"Bless you! who's got 'em nowadays? We only treasure visiting lists,"

he mocked.

After a time Esme talked herself, found herself enjoying the ever-pleasant task of pulling our friends to pieces, added a new whisper or two for Sir Thomas to elaborate.

"Just left the new Penelope, haven't you?" he said. "Denise Blakeney--she's into the starch bag after several years in hot water.

No one but Cyrrie now, and he--well, he was always a gorgon husband.

Saw a parson gazing at Denise last month at her big garden-party.

'There is a model of English wifehood, of truth and purity,' he said to something in brown muslin, whom I fancy was his wife."

"And if he knew," flashed Esme, indignantly, and stopped.

"Knew what?" Sir Thomas grew interested.

"A little secret." Esme's face grew grave. "Pah! if we all knew each other's secrets. If you knew mine and I yours."

"Haven't got any," he said comfortably. "Secrets are the kind of things you've to keep a flat for and a motor which they drive some other fellow out in. A day's amus.e.m.e.nt is my sort. But--you--you're a bit of a Penelope yourself, Mrs Carteret."

"Anything else is so stupid," said Esme, laughing.

Sir Thomas, falling into complete bewilderment, asked Esme to dinner when he found she was really alone. To forget her misery she was hilariously gay, telling smart little stories, flas.h.i.+ng out sharp speeches, amusing the little man immensely.

"Kind of woman you don't know what to make of," grumbled Sir Thomas.

"Lets you kiss her ear in the taxi, and gives yours a verbal boxing when you suggest supper in a quiet room. Gets herself up to look like what she's not, and is frightfully offended when she's taken for it.

Tires one's eyes, that cla.s.s of cipher. We'll read plain print again demain, thank the Lord."

Folly would never be Esme's refuge; she sat in her room, her sleeping draught ready, wondering what life would be like if, for mere amus.e.m.e.nt, she had been what Sir Thomas took her for. There was not even a pretension of affection, but merely: "We are well met. You are pretty, your skin is soft, your eyes are bright; let us see how much joy we can steal from Time's storehouse."

"There must be crowds of people who are like that or he wouldn't think it so natural," said Esme. "I believe Dollie wouldn't care--or Denise, once--but I--I could never forget my miseries by becoming a beast."

Then, soothed by the drug, she slept soundly, to wake with a parched mouth and heavy head, and lie tossing feverishly because her tea was late.

There were the three dresses. Fretting for them--more because she wanted to fret than because she really wanted them--Esme went to the telephone.

"Is that Madame? No? Well, give her a message. Tell her I'll send over a cheque for those dresses from London. To alter and keep them for me--Mrs Carteret."

It was a weary journey back. When thoughts would come crowding in bitter array. If there was never to be a child, then they would never be rich. Only a week before Bertie had told her plainly that they could not go on spending so much. Here again Esme blamed someone else. If Denise would only pay her regularly, it was all Denise's fault. There was two hundred owing now, since June. The thousand pounds vanished so easily. Dresses, bridge, furs, so many things that Esme wanted, could not do without. If Bertie knew that besides what he knew to be spent she was using this other money, too.

If Denise would only pay up her debts for her, let her start fair again! Esme looked sullenly at the calm sea. If not she would threaten to take the boy--she would take him. He would forget it all in time.

Then, with a s.h.i.+ver, she thought of the telling, of the scandals, of tongues wagging, of the proving and altering, and, she was not pitiless, of Denise Blakeney's complete undoing.

Denise was still in Scotland. Rashly, pressed by her desire for the dresses, Esme made up her mind to write.

Bertie met his wife at Charing Cross. With her irritable mood making her observant, Esme noticed that his light overcoat was shabby, that he lacked smartness.

"Oh! Bertie!" She kissed him, eagerly glad to see him, always hoping to find comfort in his love. Then the barrier which her secret made rose, drearily, between them. They had so little to talk about now, so little in common.

"That coat's shabby, Bert. You must get a new one," she said impatiently.

"Not just now," he answered; "it's all right."

"It's not right." Esme felt that he was. .h.i.tting at her extravagances.

"You shall get one. I'll buy it for you, Bert."

"Millionaire," he mocked. "Have you got some secret fount of money, Es?

You never have enough to buy your own things, child. And--the doctor, Es--Legrand?"

"Says I'm to drink milk and eat turnips and pray," she said bitterly, "and live in the country, and sleep on ozone, and so forth."

"And--if you would?" His voice grew eager. "Oh! Esme, if you would--just you and I together again."

The tenderness in his voice was forced there, stilling thoughts which would not sleep; he a.s.sured himself that with a fresh start, without perpetual extravagance and excitement, he would feel the old pa.s.sion for his wife wake in him. Fresh air and exercise would banish the memory of the companion whose presence he longed for so much now.

"Come to Cliff End, b.u.t.terfly. Try it as a cure, with me as chief physician."

London, huge and splendid, flitted by them as the taxi rushed to the flats; the streets called to Esme; the restaurants were lighted up, glowing golden behind their portals. She thought of the whimper of the wind, the thunder of the surf against the rocks; the dreariness of the country.

"I couldn't," she said at last; "the man doesn't understand. Town's my life, Bertie; all my pals are here. No, I couldn't."

"It will have to be Town with a difference very soon," he said, sighing.

Economy again--money; he thought of nothing else. She was not back five minutes and he was preaching at her. He could look up what he'd paid for her clothes last year. It wasn't so much. "And I'm better dressed than rich women," stormed Esme, hysterically. "You might be proud of me instead of grumbling--always grumbling."

The taxi stopped at the door of the tall buildings. There was no home in it to Bertie. The hall porter greeted them. The lift took them upwards to their flat, past other flats, and then into the pretty rooms.