the next morning, when claudia opened her eyes after a bad and restless night, she knew by johnson’s voice that some agitation was in the air.
“madam, i am sorry to wake you so early, but your mother has been ringing you up on the telephone. she insisted on my waking you.”
for a moment claudia’s dark eyes, still heavy with sleep, stared at her vaguely. then she sat up in bed with a look of alarm. “what time is it? half-past eight, and mother wants to speak to me. why, she is never wakened until ten! what can have happened?”
something in johnson’s expression caught claudia’s eye and made her certain that she knew something.
“johnson, is anything amiss? is pat ill or had an accident?” pat was the sort of wild, careless person one always associates with possible accidents.
“no, madam, i—i should think it must be about mr. jack. it’s all in the papers this morning. i thought you couldn’t know anything about it.”
[142]
“jack’s had an accident, then?” said claudia, paling, for in her way she was fond of him. “is it very bad—tell me quick, johnson.”
“madam,” gasped the woman, “it’s not exactly an accident—i mean—oh! madam, let your mother tell you.”
suddenly claudia remembered mrs. rivington’s words of the previous evening. it was true, then. that could be the only thing which would give jack prominence in the papers.
“all right, johnson, don’t look so frightened. i think i know. he’s got married, hasn’t he? all right, ring up my mother and put me through. and fetch me a newspaper, quick. do that first, before you ring up. do you understand?”
“it’s here, madam; i thought perhaps——”
claudia tore it open with shaking fingers, and billie rubbed his head against her arm in vain. a few minutes ago she would have said, “what did it matter what a young fool like jack did?” now she realized that she was furiously angry, ridiculously angry. if he had married this awful woman—ah!
peer’s grandson marries a music-hall artiste.
the words stared hideously at her as they would stare at several thousand people who opened that page—friends, enemies, acquaintances. the blood sang in her ears as she tried to read the paragraph. she could hear their friends shouting with laughter, she could see the look of contempt on the faces of the people who mattered, she could hear the course chuckles, the resurrected stories.... ugh! disgusting.
the newspaper, a popular halfpenny, recounted in well-worn journalistic phrases how the girlie girl of music-hall fame last night confessed that she had been married for several weeks to captain jack iverson of the blues, a[143] grandson of lord creagh and the son of the famous society beauty whose picture, “circe,” was known all over europe. “the bridegroom,” said the paper, “has for some years been considered one of the richest and best-looking young bachelors in mayfair, and its dovecots will be fluttered by the news of his marriage. it appears that they were married before a registrar and the utmost secrecy was observed, but truth will out, and last night miss fay morris, better known as the girlie girl, was the recipient of much congratulation. our reporter visited her between the first and second houses and found her dressing-room crowded with flowers. she is very popular in the profession, and has made her successes in america, south africa and at home. she is very pretty, with a petite, perfect figure, and she possesses a considerable store of vitality and go, so much that she is billed as ‘the whirlwind dancer and mimic.’ captain iverson’s sister is the wife of the new k.c., gilbert currey, and is considered one of the most fascinating hostesses in society.”
johnson hardly recognized her as she looked up from the paper. it was just as bad as bad could be. the girlie girl! the girlie girl! could anything be more vulgar and inane!
“you are through now,” said the maid, pushing the table that held the telephone nearer to the bedside. claudia motioned her to leave the room.
mrs. iverson’s voice was almost lost in a kind of weird moan with which she punctuated her sentences.
“i knew something awful was going to happen,” she said. “i was warned by the spirits three times in succession ... they told me that disaster was coming closer and closer. it’s too awful, isn’t it? of course, we can’t know her. jack must be mad. i’ve sent for him to come to me at once, not, of course, that we can do anything now. i couldn’t sleep and i heard two of the servants talking about it while they did the stairs. he must[144] divorce her or something. fancy marrying a woman like that. do you realize it, claudia, i’m the mother-in-law of the girlie girl—i—i! my god, it’s incredible. why, musical comedy would have been better. why didn’t you stop it? your father says he washes his hands of him, but that doesn’t prevent her being my daughter-in-law. if only the spirits had been more explicit in their warnings ... but spirits are always so vague.... i was afraid it meant that my masseur was going to die or my maid was going to leave me.... i’m prostrate.... what’s the good of jules massaging me when i’ve got troubles like this? do get dressed and come round—it’s as bad as having a funeral in the house, only, thank goodness, one doesn’t have to go into black.”
claudia put back the receiver with a click, and billie gave a bark to remind her that she had not greeted him kindly. she gave him an absent caress, her dark eyes, full of thought, looking out over his soft little head. how furious gilbert would be! the girlie girl a sister-in-law of the rising young barrister! she had long ago divined his father’s and mother’s feeling against her own family, partly shared by gilbert. lady currey would be delighted! a sarcastic smile curved her lips as johnson came in again.
johnson’s eyes were glittering with excitement, for servants love a good, rousing scandal.
in her excitement she called her mistress by her old name. “miss claudia, mr. jack is downstairs and wants to see you at once. i told him you were in bed and hadn’t had your breakfast——”
there was a knock on the door, followed by her brother’s voice.
“claudia, let me come in. i must speak to you.”
johnson looked at her, and for a moment claudia’s hands clenched themselves in helpless rage at the folly of her brother. “let him come in,” she said shortly, “and send me up my breakfast!”
[145]
johnson opened the door and jack came in, his face rather pitiable in its weakness and worry. he looked like a puppy that has lost its way. he was as smartly dressed and as well-groomed in person as usual—nothing short of an earthquake would have made him regardless of his attire, and then one felt he would have been resurrected trying to put his tie straight—but his usual placid expression of serene content with himself and that state of life into which providence had pleased to call him was gone.
he looked at claudia rather helplessly and yet appealingly, and some of the hardness of her glance melted. after all, it was the same silly old good-natured jack.
“johnson, wait a minute. have you had some breakfast?”
“yes—no—you never can get anything to eat at the flat.... i should like some coffee, claudia. i think it might pull me together if it was strong and very hot.”
he came to the bedside and sat down rather heavily in a pink-cushioned chair. mechanically he found his cigarette-case and opened it.
“oh! i beg your pardon, old girl. i forgot it was your bedroom. it’s something to do.... you know all about it!”
she pointed without speaking to the paper flung in disgrace to the foot of the bed.
“oh, well! you know, then. everybody knows. she let it out last night. women never can keep secrets.”
“was she going to be your wife—secretly—for the rest of your life?” said claudia sarcastically.
“eh? oh, well! i didn’t want people to know yet. she’s a clinking good sort, and don’t think”—with an expression like the puppy on the scent again—“that i regret marrying her. no, by jove, i don’t. but she might have let me break the thing to—to everyone.”
“you can’t break things like that,” said claudia sharply, “they break themselves. it’s like dropping an egg—it’s smash. jack, i do believe this dog has got more sense than you have. i heard a rumour about this[146] marriage last night, and i laughed at it. i had a certain amount of respect for your—social intelligence. brains you never did have, but you always had good manners. i’m utterly disgusted with you, and i never want to see you—or your wife—again.”
“you haven’t seen her yet,” said jack quickly. “so you can’t judge things.”
“i have no intention of seeing her,” said claudia, her lips tightly compressed, her eyes flashing with anger. “do you expect me to take the girlie girl to my bosom and swear i love her as a sister?”
“look here, claudia, say what you like about me—oh, yes! i know it was a fool thing to do, although i don’t regret it——” he passed his hand over his brow wearily, for his small brain, so little used, was unequalled to the strain. “i say again”—obstinately—“i don’t regret, and i’m awful fond of her—she’s a nut, i can’t tell you—but of course i can see how you and mother and everyone look at it. i never would have believed i could have done it—i’ve always jeered at other fellows who married beneath them—but i was just crazy about her. you’ll like her, claudia,” he bent forward with pathetic eagerness, his hand again seeking his cigarette-case, “she’s not a bit like anyone else. all the men are in love with her, and she could have married most anyone she wanted.”
claudia’s expression was so indicative of her feelings that he stopped. at that moment johnson brought in the breakfast-tray. jack looked at it with relief. it was something to do if only to eat and drink, and the cup of tea polly had given him that morning had been “wash.”
he noticed that claudia’s hand shook as she started to pour out the coffee, and at imminent danger to the tray and his own clothes, he caught hold of her hand.
“give us your paw, claud. i say, old girl, don’t you go against me. i came to you at once; you’ve always been such a good chap, though you do scold me.” with rough affection he put his arm round her and kissed her.[147] “i said to myself, ‘old claudia will stand by me. she isn’t a conventional duffer like the others. she’ll see fay’s fascination, and, after all, a fellow’s only got one life to live, and why can’t i do as i like?’ i’ve heard you say things like that time and time again, and gilbert’s contradicted you. i daresay i’ve done a silly thing, but if i don’t regret it, what is it to anyone else? only don’t you round on me. it makes me feel as if i’d gone to my bath and there wasn’t any water.”
claudia had to laugh, at first a little uncertainly, and then with wild abandon. jack’s similes, when he employed any, were always so absurd.
“jack, get away, the point of your collar is puncturing my cheek.... oh! you silly ass, how could you do it? now you’re upsetting the tray, and i love those pink cushions.”
“fay likes everything pale blue, but then, she’s got blue eyes. such blue eyes! they’re ripping, claud. i must give billy some sugar—we’ll pretend it’s off the wedding-cake. claudie, next to you—at least, no, because you’re so different, there isn’t any next-to—but you and she are the most ripping women i’ve ever meet. i say, i am glad of this coffee. i’m going to see that fay has some decent servants. polly’s a sketch, a fair sketch.”
he was so frankly and boyishly relieved that she had “made it up.” after all, he didn’t mind very much about his father and mother—luckily his income was his own—but claudia did matter. and he was honestly sure that claudia would be fond of fay when she knew her.
after a while claudia put the question: “she is going to give up her profession, of course?”
his brow clouded. “well, i want her to, and i’ve talked till my throat has got dry, but she says she’s got ‘contracts,’ whatever that means, for the next six years. and she’s so proud of them, too. funny set of people, you know. what there is to be proud of in having to[148] work for six years more i can’t for the life of me see. but she tells everyone.”
“i suppose it means that she’s a success and has been secured by certain theatres,” said claudia.
“eh? oh, yes! i suppose it does mean that. oh, yes! i see. that’s why she’s proud. what a nut you are, claudia, you are the brainy one of the family, right enough. how’s gilbert?”
she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders under the silken matinée.
“have you had a row over me?” he said quickly. “of course, you couldn’t explain a thing like this to gilbert.”
“you include him among the conventional duffers?” said his sister, with an enigmatic smile, patting billie with one hand.
“er—well—of course, he’s——”
“you’re quite right, my dear brother. he’s a conventional old duffer.” then, with an abrupt change of key: “but, after all, as you say, we’ve only got one life and we must each decide for ourselves how we will live it. live, love and be merry, for to-morrow we grow old!”
“by jove, old girl, that’s the right spirit, and i really am awfully fond of fay. and she’s gone on me, too.”
“you’ve been awfully in love with other girls before,” said claudia running her fingers through her soft, loosened hair, “but you haven’t married them. how did it happen?”
he evidently concentrated on the subject for a moment before he answered:
“blest if i quite know myself. i didn’t mean anything of the kind at first, because i knew that she ... i don’t know whether she put it in my head or i put it in hers.”
“you’re a very rich man,” said his sister softly.
“yes, i know; and i daresay she wouldn’t have[149] married me if i hadn’t had a good deal of oof.” catching his sister’s look of surprise, he said quickly, “oh! i don’t kid myself it was love, pure love. i don’t believe there is any such thing. and she’s as cute as they make them, only—she can be just the other way sometimes, too. she’ll interest you, claudia, she really will. i bet you haven’t met anything like her before. you’ll find her a bit of a puzzle all right. but she’s got plenty of money of her own; she earns quite a big salary, she tells me, and though she lives in a sloppy sort of bohemian way, there’s always plenty to it and no end of fluff and frills. got plenty of jewellery, too, that—that admirers have given her. i want to replace it all one day.”
“she has had plenty of admirers, then?”
he coloured a little and looked away. “oh, well! hang it all, who am i that i should hang out a blue ribbon?—no, that’s teetotal, isn’t it?—well, you know what i mean. but we’re both going to stick to one another in future.”
“but you haven’t told me yet why you wanted to marry her?”
he ruminatively twisted his small, fair moustache. “well, i don’t know. she didn’t feel for me the way she felt for the other fellows, she said. of course, they’re an awful set, though i haven’t told her so yet. and”—he got up and fidgeted with a photograph-frame, it contained a portrait of colin paton—“she’s a queer little person, fay. she’s twenty-two and she says—she says it’s time she became a mother, and she wants—the father—to be a gentleman. i daresay she’d—she’d have had it the other way—things like that don’t matter so much to them—only, of course, i couldn’t. you see that, don’t you, old girl?”
claudia’s voice was very tender and affectionate as she answered:
“run away now, old boy, and let me get up. yes,[150] you couldn’t, of course, and i’ll do my best to smooth things over. scribble down her address on that memorandum-tablet, will you?”
he came over to her and gave her a bear-like hug.
“you’re a brick, claudia. i always knew it.... i say, you haven’t been looking the thing lately. are you quite happy yourself?”
she unloosened a strand of hair from his coat-button with a little wince.
“well, at any rate i married for love. and is anybody quite happy? i guess life is rather like those bottles of mixed sweets we used to have in the nursery. they were all called ‘sweets,’ but some of them were very sharp and acid, do you remember? we used to first dig out the sugary ones, but nurse afterwards insisted that we should eat the acid ones. life is a thing of spots and streaks, jack; that’s all there is to it.”
