Читать книгу The Oyster - Peer - Страница 3

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Gleams of bright sunshine came through the windows of the trim little flat into the drawing-room furnished in miniature aping of luxury. The chairs and tables were Sheraton—Sheraton passably imitated—the covering rich brocade. Soft white cushion covers, fine as cobwebs, clothed the big squares stuffed with feathers. Late narcissi and early roses made the air heavy with scent. The place was small, but it carried the air of comfort; it was a miniature of its roomy brothers and sisters in big town houses. The door of the dining-room, standing open, showed the same taste. Polished inlaid mahogany, good silver, embroidered table linen. Early as it was there had been strawberries for breakfast, and cream, and hot bread.

"Luncheon at the Berkeley. It will be a good one too. I'm driving with Denise to that show at the Duchess's. Tea at the Carlton. Dining with Robbie at his club; the Gay Delight afterwards; supper at Jules. Oh! the days are not half long enough."

Long-limbed, slender, gracefully pretty, Esmé Carteret turned over the leaves of her engagement-book. Her blue eyes sparkled behind dark lashes; her skin was fair and carefully looked after. She was so bright, so dazzling, that at first sight one missed the selfishness of the weak, red-lipped mouth, the shallowness of the blue eyes.

"Not half long enough," she repeated. "Oh, Bertie, you—"

A flashing smile, a hand held out, yet in the greeting no look of the real love some women feel for their husbands.

"Well, Butterfly." Bertie Carteret had a bundle of letters in his hands; he was opening them methodically with an ivory cutter.

A dark man, with a quiet, strong face. Dazzled, attracted by this fair piece of womanhood, loving her as men love when they do not stop to look further than the flesh and blood they covet, and so, married. And now, loving her still, but with eyes which were no longer blinded, with little lines of thought crinkling round his eyes when he looked at her, yet still her slave if she ordered him, thrilling to the satin softness of her skin, the scented masses of her hair.

"Well, my Butterfly," he said, opening another letter.

Esmé did not pay her own bills. She had not as yet sufficient wisdom to keep the house accounts. It saved trouble to let Bertie take them.

"Esmé child!" He looked at the total written under a long line of figures. "Esmé! those cushion covers are not made of gold, are they?"

"No—hand embroidery," she said carelessly. "Everyone gets them."

"They seem to represent gold, you extravagant child."

"Dollie Maynard had them; she kind of crowed over mine last day we had bridge here. I must have things same as other people, Bert. I can't be shabby and dowdy."

"So it seems." He opened several other letters. "Well, we can just do it, girlie, so it doesn't matter. Breakfast now. I was working hard this morning."

"And I was eating strawberries. Bobbie sent them. There are eggs for you."

"Once upon a time laid by a hen," he said resignedly. "Got the stalls for to-night. That blue gown suits you, Butterfly."

"It ought to," she said, coming in to give him his breakfast. "It cost fifteen guineas."

Bertie Carteret was adjutant of volunteers in London; he had taken it to please Esmé, who would not endure the idea of a country station in Ireland.

Now Carteret was going abroad, his adjutancy over. His battalion was in South Africa; he was to join it there until he got something else to do. Esmé flashed out at the thought of the place.

"Dust and bottled butter; black servants and white ants. No thank you, Bertie—I won't go."

No one expected sacrifice from Esmé; she was too pretty, too brilliant, to endure worry or trouble. Bertie Carteret smiled at her. She should stay at home. They would soon get something else to do, and he would come back.

Esmé bent across to him that day, her face set in unwonted thought.

"Just think if your Uncle Hugh had no sons," she said, "he'd leave you everything. We'd be rich then."

Bertie laughed. Two boys made barrier between him and hopes of the Carteret money.

A pleasure-loving pair, absolutely happy in their way. Well enough off to have all they wanted, and pleasant enough to get the rest from their friends.

They chattered through breakfast of engagements, parties, trips, of days filled to the brim. Bertie was lunching at the Bath Club. Esmé, with her friend, Denise Blakeney, at the Carlton.

"And oh, Bert—ring up those fruiterer people. Dollie dines here to-morrow. We must have strawberries, and asparagus—the fat kind—and peas, Bert. She had them—Dollie. I don't want her to go away and talk of 'those poor Carterets and their mutton chops'—and send in matron glaces, Bert, and sweets from Buzzard's, will you, and some Petit Fours for tea."

"Anything else?" he said. "Esmé, do you know, my Butterfly, that we spend every penny we have, and a little more?"

With a laugh she slipped a supple arm about his neck. "And why not?" she said lightly—"why not, Sir Croaker?"

He drew her to his knee, kissing her firm neck, her soft arms—on fire to her touch.

"She was a witch," he told her, "and a Butterfly, hovering over a man's heart." She should have her strawberries, her sweeties. "And—what is it?"

For Esmé had turned white, put her hand to her throat, a sudden nausea seizing her.

"I've been like that twice before," she said; "it's the racket. Bertie, I don't feel up to luncheon now, and I like to be hungry when I lunch with Denise. Oh, thank you, dear."

For he brought smelling-salts, holding the fragrant, pungent, scented stuff to her nostrils. He was genuinely anxious.

"It's nothing," she said lightly; "something disagreed with me."

"Lunching with Denise?" He lighted his pipe. Carteret was not a cigarette-smoker. "Ever see Blakeney with her now, girlie?"

"No-o," she said reluctantly.

"H'm! I hear they're not too good pals. Denise has been playing the fool with young Jerry Roche—the 'wily fish' as they call him. She'd better not go too far with Cyril Blakeney. I was at school with him—came just when he left. But I knew his brother there also. I tell you, Esmé, they're a bad lot to vex."

Esmé shook her head thoughtfully.

"Hope Jimmie Helmsley won't be at luncheon," Carteret went on. "Steer clear of him, old dear."

"I'm lunching with him on Saturday, Bert."

"Well, don't again. He's a beast. Of course there's no fear of you, but there was the Grange Stukeley girl, poor soul, married off to a parson cousin; and Lettice Greene, and—oh, heaps of his victims."

There are some women who create trust. The dazzle about Esmé was not one of warmth. It was cold as she was selfish. Her husband, without realizing this, yet knew that he might trust her implicitly, that beyond mere careless flirtation nothing amused her.

"Well, good-bye, Esmé. I must go to do a few things which don't want doing, even as this morning I paraded unwilling youths at seven."

Carteret strolled out. Esmé picked up the salts bottle, sniffing at it. She rang for a trim, superior maid to take away, going back herself to the pretty drawing-room to write a few notes.

"I'm feeling rotten," wrote Esmé to a girl friend, "slack and seedy—" and then she jumped up, crying out aloud.

"Not that! Not that! Not the end of their dual in the treble. Not the real cares of life forced on her. Oh, it could not be—it could not!" Esmé raged round the room, crying hysterically, fighting off an imaginary enemy with her hands.

It would mean a move from the little expensive flat. Doctors, nurses, extra maids swallowing their income.

"It can't be!" she stormed. "I'm mad!" and rushed off to dress.

She looked hungrily at her slim figure in her glass, watched her maid fasten hooks and buttons until the perfectly-cut early summer gown seemed to cling to the slender figure. There was that, too—a figure spoilt. Dowdy, disfiguring clothes, and fear, the fear of the inevitable. She was counting, calculating as the maid finished fastening her dress, brought her a cloudy feather wrap, deep brown over the creamy gown, long white gloves, a scented handkerchief, a bunch of deep pink roses.

"Shall I alter Madame's yellow gown?" Marie wondered at Esmé's silence. "Madame is weary of its present aspect, with silver and violet. I can make it new—and the waist, it seemed a little tight last evening for Madame."

"It wasn't," Esmé flung out. "It's quite right. Get me new corsets, Marie—these are old. A taxi, yes."

Speeding westward swiftly, but with dread flying as swiftly. Not that—not the ending of her careless, selfish life.

"Why, Esmé, what a pretty gown; but you look pale, dear."

Lady Blakeney was at the Berkeley. A big, soft woman, with a weak, pretty face, palpably face-creamed, powdered, tinted, yet the whole effect that of a carefully-done picture, harmonizing, never clashing. With her brown hair, her deep brown eyes, she was a foil to flashing, dazzling Esmé.

"Just four, you see," Lady Blakeney sauntered to her table. She was in dull rose, exquisitely dressed.

"Yes, Jerry and Jimmie Helmsley."

Lord Gerald Roche, slim, distinctly young, just getting over being deeply in love, and still trying to think he was a victim to it, more impressive, as if to whip his jaded fancy, came in; a bunch of rare mauve orchids, fresh from a florist's, in his hand. Behind him, Jimmie Gore Helmsley, a tall man, dark, with satyr's ears, thick, sensual lips, and black eyes of cool determination. No one realized Jimmie's fascination until they spoke to him. It was in his manner, his power of subtle flattery, of making the woman he spoke to feel herself someone apart, not of common attraction, but a goddess, an allurement.

Unkind men, unfascinated, called Jimmie's black eyes boiled sloes, and swore that he rouged his cheeks; but women raved about him.

Jimmie was a pursuer of many women, a relentless one if his fancy were touched; there were girls—girls of his own rank of life—who whispered his name bitterly. The plucking of a bird sometimes amused him more than the wearing of a full-blown rose.

"Ah you! the sunshine is here now." He bent over Esmé's hands, and his flattery was as water pattering off polished marble. Esmé had no use for the Gore Helmsleys of life; she had laughed when he had given her a flower as though it were made of diamonds. Jimmie made things as cheap for himself as he could.

But Esmé talked to him now. Jerry was almost whispering to Denise Blakeney, making his adoration foolishly conspicuous.

The restaurant was filling. Denise had ordered luncheon; she never trusted to chance. A soufflet of fish, asparagus, grilled fillets of beef.

As the fish was handed to them, Denise Blakeney started and flushed painfully. Her young admirer had been showing her a jewel flashing in a tiny box—a pear-shaped pink pearl.

"Oh!" she cried sharply, and pushed the box away.

A bluff man, with heavy features, had gone up the room and sat down at a small table. His companion was an elderly woman, dowdy, rather fussily impressed.

"It's Cyrrie!" said Denise. "Cyrrie and his old Aunt Grace. He asked me to have her at Grosvenor Square to-day, and I told him a fib to escape." Denise fidgeted uneasily, her colour changing. "I told one fib," she said, "now it will take a dozen more to make it credible."

"The fib is a mental fly," said Jimmie, laughing; "he's grown large quickly. Cheer up, Milady, don't look tragic."

The big man nodded to his wife with a careless smile. It is an Englishman's need to be outwardly pleasant, to glaze a volcano with a laugh—in public.

"He hasn't scolded me enough lately," said Denise, grimly. "And the nature of husbands being to scold, it makes me nervous." She watched Cyrrie narrowly.

"Aunt Grace is having boiled chicken, specially ordered for her; she will finish up with stewed fruit and rice. It makes it so difficult when she comes. My cook is uncertain as to boiling chickens plainly." Lady Blakeney tried to fling off her depression, to do her duty as hostess. She muttered something sharply to Lord Gerald, she talked a little too fast, a little too gaily.

Esmé would flash smiles, planning some future gaiety, forget for a moment, and then, across her happiness, a cloud rose looming, threatening. Oh! it could not be! It must not be! There were so many things she meant to do. Bertie's appointment was up; he was going to South Africa until they got something else, or his other battalion came to Aldershot. Exchanges could always be managed. And Esmé was due at Trouville in August; she was going on to Scotland; she had been asked to Cheshire to hunt for two months. It must not be!

Once, in a spasm of fear, she clenched her hand, crushing her glass in her fingers, spilling her champagne. Esmé drank champagne on a hot May day because it looked well to see it there, because it brightened her wits, made pleasure keener. She liked expensive dishes, ordering them recklessly when she was asked out, taking the best of everything. She was never tired, never knew sleeplessness; could dance until four and be out riding next morning, with her bright colour undimmed. Perfect health makes perfect temper. Esmé was an unruffled companion, provided she got her own way. Down in the country, without amusement, she would have fretted, beaten against bars of dulness.

"Oh, Mrs Carteret!" she heard Jimmie exclaim as the amber liquid vanished, as the broken glass tinkled together on the cloth. "What dream moved you?" he whispered, bending close. "What, lady fair?"

A man who could throw meaning into his lightest word, here it was implied, had she thought of hidden things; the eyes burning into hers expressed that she had thought of him. Though every road in the map of love was known to Jimmie Gore Helmsley, he hinted at unknown turns, at heights unclimbed to each fresh companion he took by the route, knowing how women love mystery and hate the flat, soft paths they can see too well.

"Of what?" he whispered. "If I dared to think. It would make Friday—"

"Don't dare," Esmé flashed at him mockingly. "And Friday—where do we lunch on Friday?" she asked carelessly. "Let it be near Dover Street; I must be at the club at half-past two."

Esmé looked shrewdly at the man, wondered what women saw in the sloe-black eyes, the high-coloured cheeks; wondered why girls had made fools of themselves for him.

"I heard of an old friend of yours to-day," she said—"Gracie Stukeley—I forget her married name."

Jimmie nodded carelessly; there were no chinks in his armour. He gave no thought to a little fool who had come flying to his rooms because someone vexed her, who prattled to him of divorce; he was rather fond, in a way, of his big, swearing, hard-riding wife. He remembered that Grace Stukeley had to be married off to save her people's name.

"Nice girl," he said carelessly; "but a fool."

"Ah, Denise! You did not lunch with Eva? She put you off an hour ago; I see."

Big Cyril paused as he passed his wife. Denise made sweetly-drawled apology to Aunt Grace.

"I see," said Sir Cyril, his big face set a little grimly; "and now, whither away, Denise? To drive—to the cloth show? Well—we meet at dinner."

"Yes—to drive;" but first Denise knew that she had meant to go home to spend an hour with Jerry in her boudoir. And now she was afraid; she faltered and flushed. Would not Aunt Grace drive? Esmé could come any day.

Aunt Grace, easily flattered, gravely believing the previous engagement, accepted willingly.

She quite understood how difficult it was to find time to receive visitors from the country. Engagements were sacred. The vicar had never forgiven her once because she forgot to go to tea to meet the bishop's wife, and the hot buns were overcooked waiting for her. Mrs Lemon made a speciality of hot buns. Grace Bullingham chattered on, delighted with her luncheon, her day in London; but Sir Cyril stood silent, a curious smile on his lips.

"You're coming, Cyrrie? Denise, isn't Cyrrie coming?"

"The electric limousine of the moment has only room for two—and an interloper," said Blakeney. "No, I'm not coming, Aunt Grace. I should be the interloper. But I'll meet you at four at the station, the car can take you there, and—"

Denise was still flustered; still talking nervously. She arranged to meet Esmé again; she fussed uneasily, afraid that Jerry might be openly impressive, that he might try to whisper his regret.

"Now, auntie, come along. Au revoir, Esmé. Good-bye, Lord Gerald. See you some time next week—to luncheon on Sunday if there's no other attraction."

Something fell with a little clatter on the pavement. Sir Cyril stooped and picked it up.

"You've dropped this," he said to his wife.

It was a pear-shaped pink pearl set with tiny diamonds, a valuable toy.

Denise took it from him, hesitating.

"A pretty thing," said Blakeney, quietly. "Be more careful of it, Denise."

"Sit and smoke a cigarette with me," Esmé heard Gore Helmsley's caressing voice close to her, "in my club. And look here—I've a lovely scheme—listen!"

The scheme was unrolled simply. As Carteret would be away, Esmé must come to Leicestershire for a few days in the winter. He had a lodge there; she could get another girl to come.

"I'll lend you horses," said Jimmie. "You'd sell them for me with your riding. Brutally frank, ain't I, but you know I must keep going. Come for a month."

Another month's hunting after Christmas; the fun of staying with three men. Four or five days a week on perfect mounts. Bridge in the evenings; the planning of tea-gowns, the airing of new habits.

She was not afraid of Jimmie, or of any man. Esmé did not know the lower depths Gore Helmsley was capable of in hours when he mixed with the underworld—the great stream which glides beneath London's surface.

"I'd love to," Esmé began.

And then again the sudden fear. May—this was May. In January there might be no hunting, no enjoyment, nothing but a weary waiting for what must be.

"I'll come," she said gaily; "I must have my hunting. Oh! I must!"

Gore Helmsley smiled softly. "And—drop a hint to Denise Blakeney to go slow," he said. "Those big men think a lot."