it was two months later than this meeting, and nearly eight months after his first meeting with rachel davison, when gerard buckland, as he was “doing” the academy with a listless air on a hot afternoon in june, came suddenly upon a sight which at once changed his listlessness into excitement of the most violent kind.
in front of him, with half a dozen provincial and suburban loungers in between, were two girls, both beautifully dressed, of whom gerard at once recognized the elder to be rachel davison.
the transformation, however, from the plainly dressed and dowdy girl he had met a few months ago at the aldingtons, to the woman in a trained dress of écru lace, with a big brown hat trimmed with long ostrich plumes shading from palest pink to deepest crimson, was so amazing, so complete, that he for a moment doubted whether he had made a mistake.
for the change was not in dress only. the beauty of the brilliant rachel was of that type which is greatly enhanced by handsome dress, and she appeared ten times more beautiful now than she had done in the shabby clothes of the year before.
[18]the other girl gerard guessed to be her sister, and a more charming contrast it would have been impossible to find than that of the pale dark beauty and the pink-and-white fair one beside her.
the younger girl was dressed in an ankle-length skirt of black lace, a blouse to match with elbow sleeves, and long black kid gloves to meet them. her large mushroom hat was black also, and the only relief to the somber hue besides her golden hair and brilliant blonde coloring, consisted in a bunch of sweet peas which was tucked into her dress.
the good looks and smart appearance of the two girls attracted the attention of the crowd in the rooms to such a degree that wherever they went the people followed them, and gerard had difficulty in forcing his way through the admiring mob to rachel’s side.
the sight of her had confused his thoughts, made his heart beat fast, and revived, with extra vividness, the intense interest he had from the first felt in the girl.
with some diffidence he greeted her, and was relieved to find that she did not “cut” him, but holding out her hand with a smile, while a little tinge of pink color appeared in her cheeks, greeted him by name, thus showing that she had not, as he had feared, quite forgotten him.
“i’ve been most anxious for the pleasure of meeting you again, and i’ve asked the aldingtons about[19] you, but you haven’t been to see them lately, they said,” he stammered, although he felt as he spoke that it was rather a stupid thing to say.
she blushed a little more.
“i really haven’t much time for visiting now,” she said. “let me introduce you to my sister lilian, mr. buckland. she’s at school at richmond, but i’ve brought her out for a day’s holiday.”
“you are living in town now?” he asked.
“yes, i am staying with some friends. my mother is living down at brighton, and i divide my time between them,” said miss davison.
gerard hesitated. he wanted more than ever to know all about her, to be able to meet her at her home, to renew the acquaintance which had delighted and impressed him so much. but her words seemed to imply quite clearly that she had no such wish on her side.
“i—i had heard—the aldingtons thought”—he stammered at last—“that you were married.”
she smiled.
“i’m not a marrying girl,” she said.
there was a pause and then he grew bold.
“you’ve taken my advice and found an opening for your talents,” said he.
miss davison looked alarmed.
“what do you mean?” she said quickly.
it was an awkward question to answer. he could not tell her that whereas she had been shabby and[20] ashamed of being seen in her mother’s modest home a few months ago, now she was resplendent in expensive clothes, and evidently as far removed as possible from the pinch of poverty.
“i mean,” he said diplomatically, “that from what i saw of you i am sure you would not have failed to find some opening for your energies, and” he dared to add, with a sly glance of admiration, “to judge by what i see, you have succeeded.”
the blush faded from miss davison’s face and gave place to a demure and flickering smile.
“we have had a little luck at last,” she said. “that’s all. it’s nothing to do with me.”
at that moment an elderly lady of distinguished appearance, who appeared to be acting as chaperon to the two girls, came up to them from the seat in the middle of the room, where she had been doing her inspection of the pictures—and the people—without fatigue. miss davison had to turn to talk to her, but she did not introduce him. so he fell back upon the younger sister, who was full of excitement and happiness over her holiday.
“don’t you find looking at pictures tiring?” asked he, for want of something better to say.
“oh, no. you see this is a great treat for me, to come out with rachel; so nothing bores me, as it might anyone who could do this sort of thing whenever he liked.”
[21]“you are very fond of your sister, i can see.”
the girl’s face beamed with affection as she answered—
“i adore rachel. she’s so wonderfully clever and energetic, and good to us. do you know that she has changed everything for mamma and me, by her cleverness and her hard work?”
“i’m not at all surprised,” said gerard heartily. “i told her when i met her first that i was sure she would find some opening for her talents. she said she had none, but i knew better.”
“no talents! yes, isn’t it absurd? that’s what she always says,” cried lilian merrily. “a girl who can make eight hundred a year, without any previous teaching or training, simply by drawing designs.”
“indeed!” said gerard, admiring but almost incredulous at the simplicity of the means.
“yes,” pursued lilian confidently. “of course she has to work very hard, and she has to go about just where the firm that employs her wants her to go. but she says she likes it, and certainly they treat her very well.”
gerard was puzzled. that any firm should pay a designer eight hundred a year, and want her to travel about for them seemed strange, he thought. he had had a vague idea that a designer must go through a thorough course of training before his talents were of much practical value; and to learn that a girl who[22] had had no experience of such work could, within a few months, make such a large income was a surprise to him.
“she must have to work very hard,” he said.
“yes, but she finds time to go about and enjoy herself too. that is the wonderful part of it, and nobody could do it but rachel,” babbled on the pretty childlike seventeen-year-old sister proudly. “old lady jennings, whom she stays with, says she never sees her with a pencil in her hand when she’s at home. but she has a little studio somewhere off regent street—only she won’t tell us where, for fear we should go and disturb her at her work,” added the girl ingenuously, “and when she has anything important to do, she just shuts herself up there, and works away for hours. i do wish i were clever like that!” she added wistfully.
“i’ve no doubt you’re clever too, in some other way,” almost stammered gerard, puzzled and confused by the strange account the simple-hearted schoolgirl had given him.
he was conscious, even as he talked to the pretty child, that her sister was watching them with anxiety. was rachel anxious that lilian should not be so frank?
old lady jennings, the distinguished-looking chaperon, seemed to be anxious to have him introduced to her. but rachel prevented this, and contrived, without any appearance of incivility, to dismiss[23] gerard within a few moments of the conversation he had had with her sister.
he was disturbed, ruffled, rendered uneasy, and vaguely suspicious of he knew not what. but the impression made upon him by miss davison the elder, was stronger than ever, and he felt that he could not rest until he had found out more about her, and fathomed the mystery which appeared to surround her.
the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that the younger sister must be under a misapprehension with regard to the income earned by her sister. either it was much smaller than she supposed, and rachel pretended that it was large, in order that the younger might not feel that she was a burden, or else rachel had some other employment, more remunerative, to eke out her income.
was she on the stage? though gerard knew little about the theatrical profession except from the outside, he was vaguely sure that incomes of eight hundred a year cannot be made there except by actors and actresses who have some training or experience, or who have made such a mark for some special reason or other, that their names must be known to everybody.
that the girl in whom he felt such a strong interest would not stoop to anything unworthy he felt sure. but that he remembered, with an uneasiness which he could not stay, that singular treatment of[24] her friends the aldingtons, for whom she had professed so much affection, and yet whom she did not scruple to neglect and even to “cut,” without any apparent reason.
and why would she not let him be introduced to old lady jennings, when the lady herself had evidently been willing, if not anxious, to know him? why did such a young woman choose to wrap her doings and her whereabouts in a ridiculous mystery, which could not but be prejudicial both to herself and her young sister?
the whole thing was puzzling, irritating, and gerard could think of nothing else.
he would have liked to think of rachel davison as he had seen her first, and to honor her for her valiant efforts to restore to her mother and sister the luxurious atmosphere of their old home, all by her own hard work.
now, try as he would to dispel all doubts from his mind, he could not but feel that there was a mystery about her which was disquieting. it was true that this lady jennings, with whom she was staying, was a woman with a high and even conspicuous position in the world. not very rich, she was a great connoisseur and a much sought after hostess, and no girls on the threshold of life could have a better, a shrewder, or a more trustworthy friend.
but, on the other hand, rachel had not been candid or truthful in her statements to him: was it possible[25] that she was equally lacking in candor to others?
she had told him that her prosperity was due to “luck,” and had expressly stated that it had “nothing to do with her.”
now her sister had said frankly that this “luck” was due to her sister’s talents and hard work.
what did this discrepancy mean?
gerard worried himself unceasingly about this, for he could not get the brilliant and beautiful miss davison out of his head. lilian had said that her sister had a little studio somewhere near regent street, where she occupied herself with these wonderful designs which brought her in so handsome an income.
mrs. davison, she had said, lived at brighton, and rachel divided her time between her mother and lady jennings, whose address gerard immediately set himself to discover.
it was near sloane street, a small house, the position of which suggested a rental quite out of proportion to its small size.
gerard took a walk in that direction, and looked wistfully at the door at which he dared not knock. he felt himself to be growing even dangerously sentimental about this girl, and told himself he was a fool to think of a woman who certainly harbored no thought of him.
and yet—there was the rub!—it had seemed to him, that afternoon at the academy, that rachel[26] looked at him with a certain expression which suggested that, so far from having forgotten him, she retained almost as vivid a remembrance of him as he did of her. this was not a fancy, it was a fact, and it completed his subjugation to the tyranny of his ideal.
he began to haunt the west end, hovering between sloane street and regent street until one evening, when there was a grand dinner-party given, and a great crowd was assembled in one of the squares in the expectation of the arrival of royalty, he recognized, with a pang of surprise and terror which almost made him cry out aloud, the face and figure of rachel davison not far away from him.
she was dressed in a shabby skirt and blouse, and an old, shapeless black hat, but the disguise was ineffectual for him; he knew her at once, and was about to approach her, and to address her, when suddenly he saw her withdraw to the outskirts of the crowd, followed by a thickset man rather above the middle height. gerard, hiding himself with a strange sickness at his heart, among the crowd, nevertheless kept watch.
and he saw her hand something bright and glistening to the man, and then disappear absolutely from sight.
gerard staggered out of the crowd, faint as if he had received a physical wound.
was rachel a thief?
