Читать книгу Six Days - Glyn Elinor - Страница 4

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David Lamont left the Ministers’ Cabinet with his spirit highly exalted.

What he had received instructions to do was going to be difficult, and the inference that he had been chosen out of the number that the Ministers could have selected from gave him satisfaction.

The President had been in the room for part of the time, and they had spoken softly and gravely, and one sentence will stay in David’s memory to the day of his death.

“You have read the ‘Message to Garcia,’ of course, Major Lamont? Let it be your guide upon this difficult mission.”

His mother had given him the little booklet when it first appeared in America after the Cuban war, and his young life had been deeply influenced by the appeal in it.

He must make himself strong enough, and true enough, to be able to “carry the message to Garcia.” So it was curious that the President should have spoken of this.

As he crossed the square he reviewed his instructions.

The first thing was that he was to leave for Europe on the Olympic the following week, accompanied by his faithful servant Fergusson—Furgusson who, after a generation in America, remained as Scotch as when his father left Aberdeen. Fergusson had been with Major Lamont all through the War, though neither of them had been soldiers before it.

David’s war record was of the finest, just as his business record in New York had been of the finest before that. And now, at thirty-three years old, he had this one more task to accomplish before he could retire into private life, and give his time and his talents to his country’s Government, which was his aim.

The Lamonts had always been well-to-do people, living down by Washington Square, and quite indifferent to the rush of events or the urge to accumulate wealth. However, real estate in a populous neighborhood is a solid heritage.

David had the modern spirit. He must be and do. And he had done a great many things already, and meant to do more!

“You will have to disappear completely for two months, Major Lamont,” the Minister had said. “You can give no account of your movements to anyone, and avoid meeting old friends, by the way, or entering into any new acquaintanceships. You will receive full instructions at the Embassy in Paris, where you will arrive in twelve days’ time—and then you will proceed to carry them out.”

His destination lay “somewhere in the near East”—and that is quite enough for us to know!

Fergusson would have everything ready to start. He was accustomed to sudden movements on the part of his master. David was going to stay in Washington until the night train to New York left. He had an hour now to spare, and would go and see an old friend of his family who lived on Massachusetts avenue.

He was an agreeable sight to look upon as he crossed the square, with his upright, lithe, well drilled figure, and his nice clothes. Some people thought that he was too stern of countenance for his age—but no one disputed his charm.

David’s hair was as black as jet, and immensely thick, and he wore it brushed back from his broad brow; it gleamed like a silk hat. His skin was olive, but not very dark, and you could see the bluish shade where he shaved a strong beard. His eyes were the blackest things imaginable—so intensely black that the pupil seemed to merge in the iris. They were full of magnetic, compelling force, under his thick level brows and heavy inky eyelashes. His features were classic in their clear cutting, and his mouth shut like a vice. It was the firmest thing in mouths.

Every gesture, every look of him, suggested one used to command. “An ugly customer to run up against, and a good friend,” those who knew him well said of him. He was accustomed to mind his own business, too, and never vouchsafed gratuitous information.

Women adored him. He was quite uninterested in them, except as pastimes on the rarest occasions. He had none of the American male’s tolerance for all their failings. He saw them as they were, without glamour, and utterly despised most of them. The memory of an adored mother who had died in the first year of the War kept his ideal very different to the fluffy, bobbed-haired flappers whom he met whenever he dragged himself into society.

David Lamont knew Europe as well as America, and was no raw novice, but a polished man of the world.

He was ruthless and often hard, but he amounted to something, and no one ever talked with him for five minutes without being aware of it, although he had not one touch of egotism, and never spoke of himself or his doings.

“He will go far,” some of the Supreme War Council had said, when he was with them in France.

But fate seems to send human beings into backwaters sometimes, in spite of all their wills, and when David left France in 1920 he had been swamped in the bog of private business, on his father’s death, and it was only now, a year afterwards, that he was able to emerge and take an active part in the game he had set himself to play.

As he ran up the steps of Mrs. Longton’s house he met a friend of his coming out, one Captain Jack Lumley, an Englishman, who had been over on Government business. They had fought together when David was attached to an English Guards Battalion in 1918, and were glad to meet again.

“Hullo, Jack!”

“Hullo, David, old boy!” And they grasped hands and talked for a few moments gladly.

“I’m going back on the Olympic. I was just going to wire you in New York.”

“I’m crossing on her, too,” David said; and at that moment the door was opened, and, calling out “So long!” he disappeared inside the house, and Captain Lumley went on down the street with set face.

An hour ago he—Jack Lumley—had gone to Mrs. Longton’s on purpose to see Laline Lester, with whom he was deeply in love. She had come in with her aunt, Mrs. Greening, to say farewell before starting for Europe—her first visit abroad.

Laline Lester was all that a really lovely American heiress should be. Highly educated, with wonderful complexion and eyes and hair, fair as a lily, and with feet and hands and a taste for dress which could not be surpassed. She had been thoroughly spoilt and indulged all her life, but kept rather away from the ultramodern set, so that she lent prestige to parties when she attended them. Her temperament was speculative. She tried things to find if there was any good in them, and when they disappointed her she threw them away.

Her rubbish heap was growing, and her critical faculties were becoming more acute. She had had the usual number of flirtations that every beautiful American heiress of twenty-two has experienced, and she had found them all Dead Sea fruit and of no meaning. She had never cared for anyone in her life, except her cat, Mumps, and her mother’s old maid, Celestine, with whom she had spoken French since she was born. Celestine really meant something to her.

The War had prevented her going to Europe during those years and then had come her mother’s death, which had caused no one any grief, since she had been a selfish, hypochondriacal, nervous wreck as long as her daughter could remember anything.

Laline was looking for something in life—she did not know what. All the men she had met she could rule. She danced with them, listened to their love declarations, realized that they were all the same and then troubled herself no more about them. She was accustomed to their devotion, which contained no thrill.

Jack Lumley had been different. First, because he was of another nation, so that his methods of trying to gain her favour were not the same. Secondly, because he had a fine and dear character; and Laline knew it.

But when the pleasure of possessing a new kind of slave was dulled a little all interest went, and he, too, joined the throng of those who could not hold her. Only, perhaps, he was the thing she loved—next to Mumps and Celestine!

That afternoon, as they had sat on the sofa in Mrs. Longton’s smaller drawing-room, Jack had once more asked her to marry him. He had plenty of money of his own, and was heir to an old cousin’s earldom—and Laline rather wanted to become someone in England, as her friend Molly Beaton had become. She thought that she was very foolish to refuse him, but she just couldn’t bring herself to promise anything.

“You know that I don’t love you really a little bit, you dear old Jack,” she had said, letting him hold her hand, since no one could see them from the larger drawing-room beyond. “If you ask me again when I am twenty-five, and I haven’t found a thing which can make me feel by then, I’ll probably say ‘Yes.’ But it is three years to wait. Oh, Jack, I do want to feel!”

His kind blue eyes gazed at her. How he loved her!—every bewitching curl of the golden hair, every soft curve of the pink velvet cheek, every flash of the grey eyes that seemed to look out resentfully from their brown, curly lashes. Laline’s lashes always filled men with a desire to kiss them, they were such babyish things. Not the least black—indeed, not even very dark—goldy near the skin, getting to brown at the tips; but they were so very luxuriant, and turned right up against the white lids. Her great grey eyes always seemed to be looking out through a shadow that was soft and a little dusky, but not dark at all. “Dawn eyes” one poetic lover had called them. Only, often they were unsatisfied, and even discontented.

Why could not one of these would-be husbands make her feel?

Molly Beaton had said that Englishmen were very masterful, not a bit good and biddable like American men, and that her own husband was a selfish brute, whom she adored! So Laline had hoped much when Jack Lumley had been presented to her. But he went down under her spell in the first half-hour, and showed as much eagerness to please her as Potter Grey, or Willemon Dodge, or any of the rest of them. He never got the least drunk, though—that was something.

When she had said “No” again, for the third time, as she sat upon Mrs. Longton’s sofa, Jack Lumley had kissed her very beautiful hands.

“Laline, I love you—you can never know how much. Some people think of love in one way, some in another. For me it means devotion. I would rather you were happy than have my own heart’s desire.”

“Jack, you dear!”

“I’ll wait, then, darling. But you’ll let me take care of you on the Olympic next Wednesday, won’t you?”

“Why, certainly.”

Then she let him kiss her two hands again, and when he went she rose and looked out of the window to watch him as he left the house, and she sighed. But then her eyes caught sight of David Lamont talking to him, and some slight feeling of interest permeated her. Here was a new type! Someone she had never seen before. No native of Washington. Dressed in English clothes; very well set up; all there; American, assuredly—but of the world. Who could he be? A friend of Jack’s? How warm their greeting was! She could see everything from behind the net curtain. What black hair! “I hate black hair, and that blue mark where he shaves. Just like an Italian waiter!”

Then she knew that he had entered the house, and in an instant would be passing through the room, probably. She was quite alone there. The considerate hostess had imagined she was still talking to Captain Lumley, and had left her in peace in this outer small drawing-room.

She certainly felt interested as the butler opened the door and the tall, upright, lithe figure strode in, and past her with the utmost indifference. His goal was the further room, where Daisy Longton could be seen beyond teacups and cocktail glasses. No man in any room had ever passed Laline Lester with indifference in her whole life!

A little feeling of resentment rose in her. She would stay there, and not return to the others as she had meant to.

Mrs. Longton was meanwhile greeting Major Lamont effusively—he was so difficult to secure—and she felt so delighted that he had spared the time to look her up.

She introduced him to everyone—numbers of pretty girls and their admirers.

“What a frightful bore this custom of introductions is,” David thought. “Why in the world can’t they do as they do in Europe, and leave people alone?”

How could he ever remember all their tiresome names and their tiresome faces? All exactly the same, with the last Paris hat and the last shaped Cupid’s bow of a mouth made with lip-grease—fluffy bits of sugar cake! He had come there to talk to Daisy Longton about old times and their mutual interests—they had been children together—he had not come to be launched into a bunch of débutantes, the very sight of whom irritated him.

They said all the bright things they always say, and smoked and sipped their cocktails, and only one or two even dimly perceived the hardly even amused contempt which lay in Major Lamont’s fathomless eyes.

“He is just too darling!” one beauty whispered to her friend, who snapped her head off. “I think he’s a brute. He makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Laline, alone in the outer room, was becoming more and more disturbed. Was no one remembering her absence? The colour deepened in her cheeks. She got out her lapis and diamond vanity box and examined herself in the little mirror. Then she dabbed her white velvet nose and her pink velvet cheeks with powder. Her lips were so red they never really did need grease. And then she straightened herself. It would look odd if he passed out again and she was still there alone. So she controlled her resentment at the turn things had taken, and walked through the archway into the inner drawing-room.