Читать книгу The Reckless Lady - Philip Gibbs - Страница 5

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Mrs. Fleming saw her husband in the crowd watching the procession of King Carnival outside the Casino of Monte Carlo. She was not quite sure of him at first. Fifteen years make a difference to a man—and to a woman, dear God! But it was certainly that husband of hers, with his grave, handsome hatchet-face and bronzed skin, and the old grim look about the line of his mouth—smiling now but with contempt for this frivolity of life. His hair had grown grey—pepper-and-salt!—and his skin was more leathery, and the little wrinkles about his eyes had been carved deeper. Almost an old man, though with a straight back and keen, hawk-like eyes. Fifty-four last birthday she remembered. He was looking at her—or through her—and she felt herself become white and just a little faint—though it was quite ridiculous to feel like that! Sooner or later they had been bound to meet face to face, somewhere in a crowd like this, or in some restaurant in Paris, Florence—anywhere. He had come back from India three months ago. She had seen that in the papers. He had been broken over the Punjab affair—“the massacre,” as the Liberal Press called it—like General Dyer before him. Well, she didn’t blame him for that; knowing India and the need of a strong hand. Dick would be strong all right, merciless when it was a question of what he thought was duty and justice, and the safety of the Empire and all that.

There he was, staring at her with his yellow-brown eyes through the dazzling sunlight which did not make him blink. Almost an old man, now! Did he recognise her? Or was he just wondering where he had seen her before? She lowered her sunshade so that he could not see her, and wondered why her hands felt so cold.

“What’s the matter, Mother?” asked Stephen, her watchful son, who had lover’s eyes for his mother.

“Rather hot and stuffy in this crowd, isn’t it?” she asked. “Do you children want to see all this nonsense?”

She still called them children, though Stephen was eighteen last birthday and Sylvia twenty, so that she was appalled sometimes at her own age, though at forty-five she felt ridiculously young, as she had told Henry Carey, and just as amused with life as ever, when her luck was in.

“I’m not keen on it,” said Stephen. “Let’s go and get tea somewhere.”

But Sylvia was enjoying herself, as usual. She was mounted on a wooden chair which the young man by her side—a young American named Edward Hillier—had hired for ten francs, and was looking over the heads of the crowd at the Carnival procession with its monstrous figures of fun, its giant ladies—ridiculous creatures!—its immense plaster cupids riding on dragons, its mediæval horsemen with green garlands, its heralds and knights, and all the long riot of dancing Pierrots, and Harlequins in comic masks, and short-skirted girls flinging confetti at the sightseers, to the blaring music of brass bands.

“Oh, Mother!” cried Sylvia. “Do have a look from this chair. It’s priceless! Here comes old King Carnival and his courtiers. Did you ever see such a ridiculous old monster!”

She was the prettiest picture in the crowd, thought Mrs. Fleming, as the girl turned with laughing eyes and one hand on the shoulder of the young American who had paid for her chair. She was in the white frock of Florentine lace which Mrs. Fleming had bought for her out of a successful little deal in foreign exchanges—Julius Kahn had been right about the fall in the franc!—and she had one of those absurd Tom Thumb parasols, which she waved excitedly above the heads of the crowd.

“My wild rose!” thought Mrs. Fleming. “My beauty who is beginning to know her own womanhood! How am I going to keep her safe? How am I going to hide her from her father?”

“Come on, Sylvia,” said Stephen. “We’ve seen enough, and Mother is suffocated in this crowd.”

“Oh, half an hour more!” cried Sylvia. “You two go and have tea, if you’re so superior to life. Mr. Hillier will look after me—won’t you?”

“I certainly will,” said the American.

He turned to Mrs. Fleming with a smiling courtesy.

“If you will allow me, Mrs. Fleming! Your daughter will be quite safe in my care, and it’s a pity to miss the fun.”

He was a tall young man, rather grave and serious except when he smiled, and good-looking, with a thin, clean-shaven face and grey self-confident eyes.

“Well, I’m not a spoil-sport,” said Mrs. Fleming, laughing at his plea. “But Stephen had better stay with you. I shall make my way to the Casino and get out of this noise.”

“Oh, lord!” said Stephen. “The Casino again, Mother? I believe that old place has put a spell on you. You’re always there!”

His mother seemed amused at those words.

“One meets amusing people. I like to watch them at the tables. I get a thrill out of it, I confess—all that money won and lost.”

“As long as you don’t try the thrill yourself——” said Stephen suspiciously. “It’s a rotten way of passing the time.”

Mrs. Fleming laughed good-naturedly.

“A few francs now and then. Just to try one’s luck. No harm in that, sonny! What are you young people doing this evening?”

It was Sylvia who explained the programme. Mr. Hillier had invited them to dinner at Mentone to meet his people. It was a gala night at the Amirauté. Great fun.

“My father and mother would much like to meet your son and daughter, Mrs. Fleming. I’ve told them of all your kindness. If you would join us at short notice——”

Mrs. Fleming pleaded the need of a quiet evening.

“Another time I’d love it,” she said graciously. “But if you’ll take the children——”

Stephen seemed to shirk the arrangement.

“I hate to leave you alone, Mother. And anyhow I wanted to do a bit of work.”

Sylvia jumped off the chair and seized Stephen’s arm, to the amusement of the crowd standing around them and watching the procession.

“Bother your old paint-pot for once! And don’t think Mother will fret without you. She’ll be perfectly happy—won’t you, Mother?—and youth has its rights.”

“You’re a gad-about,” said Stephen. “Anything rather than stay at home.”

Mrs. Fleming glanced at her son’s face and saw her husband in it—her stern, censorious husband of ancient days, who stood within a few yards of her so that she was frightened to death, though she pretended not to see him. Stephen was distressingly like him sometimes, though seldom censorious with her. He thought her wonderful, the paragon of all virtues. One day, when he found out ...

She felt rather cold, though she had complained of heat.

“It’s your own selfish egotism,” said Sylvia, who was never at a loss for argument. “Mother will be delighted to get rid of you once in a while. No woman can stand one man clinging to her all the time.”

Stephen grinned.

“Oh, well, if you put it like that! But it’s a warning to your future husband.”

The American intervened, smiling at the boy and girl like an elder brother.

“I don’t want to wreck a happy home life. But my people would love to see you. If your mother is good enough to spare you.”

He was very courteous and obliging, but keen too, as Mrs. Fleming saw, by his glance at Sylvia.

“What an argument about nothing at all!” she exclaimed. “Go and enjoy yourselves—you two—and don’t be home too late.” She kissed her hand to them and turned away, lest they should see a ghost in her face. He was like a ghost come back to haunt her—that man in the crowd over there.

She was aware that the crowd about them had been listening to their conversation. She saw them smiling at Sylvia with an admiration that was not unknown to the girl herself. The blare of bands in the Carnival procession broke out afresh as another car with its grotesque figures came round the gardens. Sylvia had mounted the chair again and was waving her parasol at a pasteboard giant drinking champagne out of a monstrous bucket. The young American was holding her arm to keep her steady. All the English visitors nearby were craning their necks to see the comic figure, as Mrs. Fleming slipped away from them.