Читать книгу The Way of These Women - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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Jermyn entered the smoking-room about half an hour later, and found Lakenham installed in one easy chair with his feet upon another, a large brandy-and-soda by his side, and a pipe of bull-dog pattern in his mouth, from which he was emitting columns of smoke with an air of great satisfaction.

‘I say, Jermyn, is Miss Cluley better?’ he asked anxiously.

Jermyn nodded. He brought himself a whisky-and-soda from the sideboard and drew up an easy chair towards his guest.

‘Yes, she seems all right now,’ he announced. ‘It was just an ordinary fainting fit. I suppose she came down here really rather strung up. That acting night after night must be a strain upon any one.’

‘Can’t see how they do it,’ Lakenham confessed. ‘Must be working on their nerves all the time. Queer thing, when you come to think of it, though, to go off in a faint like that without a moment’s notice.’

Jermyn was looking grave and worried.

‘It frightened me,’ he admitted. ‘However, she seems quite all right now. I suppose it has been rather an exciting day for her, and just as we were leaving the study I asked her a question which seemed to upset her a little. I ought to have left those sort of things alone—for to-day, at any rate.’

Lakenham looked thoughtfully at his pipe.

‘Yes, I daresay she’s found it a bit exciting,’ he remarked. ‘No doubt she gets plenty of offers of marriage, but we can guess the kind of people they come from as a rule—stage-struck boys, actors and hangers-on at the theatre—any one who comes within the glamour; not to speak of the adventurers, who’ve got an eye on her salary. I was a bit of a fool that way myself in my younger days, but my tendencies weren’t matrimonial, fortunately. It’s certainly a great day for Miss Cluley.’

Jermyn turned his head slightly and regarded his guest with level eyebrows.

‘I consider it also,’ he said slowly, ‘a great day for me. I have the utmost respect and admiration for Miss Cluley, apart from the feelings which have prompted me to ask her to become my wife.’

Lakenham knocked the ashes from his pipe slowly.

‘You’re a bit too high-flown in your notions for me, Jermyn,’ he declared. ‘I’ve no doubt you know a good deal more about the young lady than I do, but if I were to become engaged to a young lady from the theatres who has had as much admiration as Miss Cluley, I shouldn’t start by expecting too much. What I do say,’ he went on, his eyes becoming a shade brighter, ‘is that she’s the most fascinating little creature I ever saw in all my days. Just the sort of girl to turn a man inside out. To-night at dinner-time she was irresistible—simply irresistible.’

He seemed to have forgotten that his pipe was already empty. He went on tapping it against the ash-tray by his side, with his eyes fixed upon the carpet.

‘I have knocked about a bit in Paris and Vienna, and I know New York,’ he continued, talking as though half to himself, ‘but I never in the course of all my days saw a more charming, a more fascinating little object than she was to-night, with her quaint little graces and that smile and her exquisite figure. She has all the Eve tricks, you know, Jermyn.’

Jermyn stiffened perceptibly.

‘I find Miss Cluley exceedingly natural,’ he said. ‘That, to my mind, is one of her chief charms. By-the-bye, Aynesworth, you are about so much in London, and you make such a point of being a figure in theatrical society that I rather wonder you never met her.’

‘I rather wonder at it myself,’ Lakenham assented. ‘If I had only known—but there, it’s too late now. You see, she was never to be met with at the musical comedy dances or those sort of shows. I think she knows her value, that young lady.’

‘Lucille was talking to me for a moment,’ Jermyn continued, ‘after we had taken Miss Cluley upstairs. She seemed to think that you were puzzled about her, that you had a sort of idea that you had met her somewhere before.’

Lakenham was silent for a time.

‘Between ourselves, Jermyn,’ he admitted, ‘it’s a funny thing, but the idea haunts me. You know, I have knocked about a lot,’ he went on confidentially. ‘The number of girls I’ve flirted with would make up one of the bulkiest albums that was ever bound. Nature didn’t bless me with brains like you, Jermyn. Women and sport have been my hobbies. Yes, I can see that little curl of your lips, but I am honest, at any rate. It may seem to you an ignoble sort of confession, but it’s the truth. Now somewhere back in my memory there’s a little cell that I can’t see into, and in that cell there’s a memory, and the memory has something to do with that—that fascinating little witch upstairs. All day long I’ve been struggling with it, struggling to remember. The thing’s becoming almost a torture to me. And this is the funny part of it, Jermyn, since we are on the subject. She won’t admit it, she probably wouldn’t admit it even if you asked her, but she knows.’

Jermyn walked across the room for a moment and stood at the open window. The moon now was almost overhead. As he stood there, Jermyn was conscious of his first moment of actual depression. From his first meeting with Sybil there had never been a single second when he had doubted her. He had been in those days absolutely without prejudice or preference. His intuition had started him fairly. Surely his instinct was to be trusted for the rest? He thought of her simple life, her careful avoidance of all the excesses and vulgarities into which she was so continually tempted; her care for her sister, their devotion for one another. When he came back into the room he was himself again.

‘Aynesworth,’ he said, ‘with reference to that memory which you say is eluding you, I should like you to understand something. You are a man of the world; I am not. I have asked Sybil Cluley to be my wife, and having done that I have placed everything I have to offer of myself and my life and my honour in her hands. These things are not affected by circumstances. Do you follow me?’

‘No, I’m hanged if I do!’ Lakenham replied, striking a match and lighting his second pipe. ‘You’ve asked her to marry you all right, but if you were to find out that she was——’

He shrank suddenly back in his place. The words which he had been about to use carelessly enough seemed choked in his throat. The fire in Jermyn’s eyes was like the flash of a rapier.

‘Forgive me,’ Jermyn interrupted quietly. ‘You had better let me finish. You say yourself that I am a crank. Perhaps in worldly things I am to some extent. Yet I would like you to understand this. I decline to hear anything which you may remember concerning Miss Cluley. I decline to hear anything whatever about her except from her own lips, and from her own lips I have heard all that I choose to know. Is that clear?’

Lakenham, whose pipe was now going to his satisfaction, nodded with a subdued air of compassion.

‘Yes, that’s all right, Jermyn,’ he declared. ‘Lord love you, we’re all made differently, aren’t we? The only trouble is that I seem to be made to fit into this world, but the Lord knows where you’d find one to suit your notions!’

Jermyn smiled as he rose to his feet and threw away the end of his cigarette.

‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘half the people you pass by in the world are living somewhere in a little garden, or a wilderness, perhaps, of their own making. We can see no more than they care to show us of their lives. We may think that they are pressing on side by side with you or with me. They aren’t really. We needn’t, you know, unless we like. Good-night! I’ll leave you to finish your pipe.’

‘Good-night, old fellow,’ Lakenham answered with a sigh. ‘God bless my soul!’ he added to himself, as the door closed.

Jermyn found Lucille with her foot upon the stairs, looking doubtfully at the clock.

‘Of course, these hours of yours, my dear host,’ she protested, ‘are too awful!’

‘What on earth are you grumbling at?’ Jermyn replied, smiling. ‘It’s midnight and you’ve had four rubbers of bridge.’

He had paused by her side. She moved a little nearer to him, as though by accident. Her eyes and lips were very close to his. In his present state he was, of course, almost hopeless, but she was a past mistress in the small subtleties of her sex and she had great faith in propinquity. She knew, also, that she was beautiful.

‘You dear, primitive person,’ she whispered. ‘I hate to go to bed before three or four o’clock, and the bridge was too awful. Your doctor was the only man who could play a card, and he didn’t understand Auction. Really, I think I am the most self-denying person in the world to do this for you—for many reasons.’

Jermyn was a trifle uncomfortable without knowing why.

‘It was very nice of you to come, Lucille,’ he said. ‘Still, you proposed it yourself, didn’t you, and somehow or other I always seem to rely upon you if I want anyone to do me a kindness.’

She looked at him with a little petulant frown.

‘My dear boy,’ she exclaimed, ‘you do ask such strange kindnesses! Now something elderly, with a cat and a dead husband and cameo ornaments, would have done just as well as I.’

‘But I don’t know anything of that sort,’ he objected. ‘Besides, you wanted to come for a few days.’

‘I wanted to come, it is true,’ she admitted, ‘but not exactly under these conditions. Harrod’s or Whiteley’s would have supplied exactly what you wanted. Really, I feel that I am wasted, besides being quite unnecessary, I am sure. Your beautiful Miss Cluley is the soul of propriety, isn’t she, and you always say that your life is directed without any regard to other people’s opinions.’

‘There are certain conventions,’ he replied, ‘which one owes it to one’s future wife to observe.’

She yawned.

‘Every now and then, Jermyn,’ she declared, ‘you make me wonder why you are not a worse prig than you are. In any case it’s too late for a discussion of this sort. If you were really grateful, really conscious of your responsibilities as my host, you would do your best to entertain me for an hour—sit with me in the garden, perhaps, and tell me about your new play ... No? Well, then, I shall go in and make poor Aynesworth entertain me for a few minutes. I can’t think of a more satisfactory way of getting sleepy than to listen to him talk.’

‘You’ll find him in the smoke-room in a typical attitude,’ Jermyn remarked, smiling. ‘Good-night, Lucille!’

He raised her hand to his lips—their old form of salute. The fingers were very cold and she leaned just a little towards him.

‘There was a time,’ she whispered——

He laughed.

‘Don’t flirt with me, please, Lucille,’ he begged, moving up the stairs. ‘I am in far too susceptible a frame of mind.’

She stood with one foot upon the bottom stair, her hand upon the banisters, watching him ascend. He passed out of sight without turning his head. Then very slowly she crossed the hall once more and entered the smoking-room.