Читать книгу Gerald Cranston's Lady - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 33

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Hermione, watching her husband and father return to the drawing-room, scarcely noticed the signs of unusual preoccupation on Gerald’s face. The little puckers at the corners of the eye-sockets—always a signal of annoyance with him—vanished almost before she had observed them. His good-by to her aunts and cousin, his part in the four-cornered desultory conversation that followed, gave her no clue to the thoughts that were harassing his brain. Nevertheless, she realized, subconsciously if not consciously, that his interview with the earl had not been altogether a smooth one.

Gradually, moreover, as she continued her covert watching of him, it came to her that the interview in question must somehow have concerned her own welfare. Every now and again Gerald’s eyes seemed to be appraising her, as though, behind them, the brain were holding some debate of which she was the subject. The debate, she could feel, was not hostile. All the same, it made her vaguely uncomfortable; so that when, shortly after ten thirty, the desultory conversation came to an end, and Gerald, even more inscrutable than usual, handed her into the waiting Rolls, her very first remark was the tentative question:

“What were you and father so long about down-stairs, Gerald?”

“We were talking—business.”

“Alan’s business?”

“Partly.”

Her husband’s voice, forbidding further questions, served only to heighten Hermione’s curiosity. Sitting silent by his silent side as the car swung past the Marble Arch down a semi-deserted Park Lane, she determined to solve the puzzle of this new aloofness. “I’m his wife,” she thought. “If Father and he discussed my affairs, I’ve a right to know what they said.”

They came to the Ritz; and, once again, as Gerald ushered her into the fire-lit sitting-room, she could not help comparing him with her first husband. Tony, before lighting a cigarette and pouring himself a whisky and soda, would have kissed her—violently, passionately. Gerald merely helped her to divest herself of her fur-trimmed opera-cloak.

She asked him, blushing in secret at the old recollection: “And what about me? Don’t I deserve a little soda-water after entertaining Mildred and Cynthia?”

He apologized, genuinely upset at the oversight; and, taking the filled glass from his outstretched hand, she sat herself down by the fire. “Tired?” she queried.

“Moderately.” He drew a chair to the table. “One way and another, I’ve had a longish day.”

“Was Father very troublesome?”

“Not exactly troublesome.” Perceptibly, Gerald hesitated. “He’s rather bothered, you know. This affair of your brother’s!”

“You said just now that Alan’s affair was only part of the trouble.”

“I don’t think I used the word ‘trouble.’ ”

“Bother—then?” The idea that she must fence with her own husband began to irritate Hermione. Looking up at him, she perceived that his lips were compressed, resolute against confidence. “Gerald,” she went on, “I wish you wouldn’t treat me like a stranger. If you and Father discussed my affairs——”

“They weren’t entirely yours.”

“Did Father ask you not to tell me?”

“No.”

“Then why this reticence?”

She smiled at him; and he—a little impressed by the intelligence of her cross-examination—smiled suddenly in reply.

“Your father,” he said, putting down his empty glass, “seems to have a higher opinion of my business judgment than about my treatment of his daughter.”

“You needn’t be so cryptic.” Her lips still smiled; but her heart experienced anew the vague discomfort of half an hour ago. “I won’t ask questions if you don’t want me to.”

“It isn’t that.” His directness had its appeal. “It’s only that I dislike talking before I’ve come to a decision. Besides, this isn’t only our affair. It’s the boy’s.”

“Arthur’s?”

“Precisely.”

“So it was that wretched settlement,” thought Hermione, her pale cheeks flushing. “How dared Father bring that up again? As if Gerald couldn’t be trusted—” And the suddenness of the thought startled her into saying, “I hope you told Father to mind his own business?”

“I can’t imagine any one telling your father to do that.” Cranston, pleased at the expressed partizanship, hesitated once more. Then, frankly, he went on: “As a matter of fact, the question of my making some provision for the boy didn’t come up until quite late. I rather brought it on by suggesting that your father should join our board. He seemed to think, in view of what I told him about the affairs of the company, that I was in a position to make a definite settlement on both of you——”

“On both of us?” Hermione’s voice was low.

“It would have to be on both of you—at least, as I see it.”

“But you’re making me an allowance.”

“Naturally. But your father’s idea, and the more I think of it the more I am inclined to agree with him, is that you ought to have something more than an allowance—money of your own.”

“But the allowance is my own. You don’t even ask me how I spend it.”

“Of course I don’t. Spending it is your business, in the same way that making it is mine. Still, there’s a good deal in what your father said. When a man assumes obligations, he’s got to go through with them.”

Cranston fell silent, his eyes on his wife. Sitting there, the wood-fire glowing on her pale cheeks, she made a picture of loveliness. Yet his thoughts were not of love. To him, the picture seemed only part of his own life-plan. That Hermione, by tacitly opposing her father’s suggestion, should once again demonstrate how much her outlook differed from the outlook of those other, greedier women, no longer surprised him. He said to himself, naïvely simple: “Of course she’s different; she’s my wife. Rorkton’s right. Even if it weren’t a question of his joining the board, I ought to protect her—and her son—against every possible eventuality.”

But Hermione’s thoughts—she, too, had fallen silent—no longer ran on the difference between Gerald and other males. For a moment she saw him as he was, the actual man. Without love, perhaps, yet without guile. Primitive—direct—efficient. Mechanism if one liked; yet an admirable mechanism. Reliable. Functioning without clatter, without heat. “Safety,” she thought. “Yes—I’ve won safety.” Then the moment passed; and with its passing came a bitterness—the old ache to be loved, recklessly, without safety.

“Well?” he asked suddenly. “Well, what’s your opinion? Tell me. I’d like to know it before I give you mine.”

“My opinion?” Startled in mid-thought, she could only repeat his first words. She wanted to say: “I haven’t an opinion. And even if I had one, it isn’t fair to ask me for it.” She wanted to say, “If our marriage was just a bargain, I for my part won’t go back on that bargain.” Despite the old ache, she wanted, most of all, to say, “I’m happy—content to trust in you, Gerald.” But, somehow, she could say none of those things. Somehow, she could only look at him ... pleasurably, her eyes fascinated by the implacability of his manhood.

“Well?” he asked again.

And at that, finally, the innermost of her heart found tongue. “If it were only for myself, Gerald,” she faltered, “I wouldn’t let you settle a penny on me. But since you tell me it’s for Arthur’s sake, my opinion is that you should do it.”

“I’m going to,” said Gerald Cranston—and, vaguely, as his eyes, smiling again, met hers, Hermione knew illusion; the illusion that now and here, in the presence of this man from whom she had sought only safety, she had refound love.