by Guy McCrone
V
Half an hour later, Robin met Mrs. Hamont as, by chance, he crossed the public gardens which then only partially covered the mountain river running down to the sea through the town on the west bay. Now, as he walked with her back to lunch, his spirits had given themselves to the flowers and the sunshine. The still somewhat artificial magic of this, the least artificial of Riviera towns, had taken hold of him. His senses, quickened by this morning’s adventure, were no longer muted. They were wide open. Now he felt, as, indeed, so many people from the North have felt when first they find themselves in Mediterranean lands—that, in coming here, he had, in some manner unexplained, found his way home. It was a change from the apathy of yesterday; a change he welcomed.
He was watching the construction of wooden stands in the centre of the gardens when Lucy called to him. “Hullo, Robin!”
“Good morning, Mrs. Hamont.”
“What are you looking at?”
“I was wondering what they were doing.”
“They’re putting up these stands for the orange and lemon festival, I suppose. The peasants down here have always had some kind of festival at the lemon harvest, I’m told. The town encourages them now to amuse the visitors, of course. But it’s traditional enough.”
“A harvest in February, Mrs. Hamont?”
“Yes. It’s difficult for a Scot to realise, isn’t it?”
“I can’t believe you are Scotch. You don’t sound—”
“I’m very Scotch indeed, Robin! Quite as Scotch as you and all your Moorhouse relatives! Come back to lunch with me and I’ll tell you all about myself.”
Which of course Mrs. Hamont did not do. Still, it was pleasant for him to walk beside this elegant woman; to know she was a family friend, yet without any of the stuffiness of such a relationship; pleasant to be encouraged to talk freely and with all a young man’s artless selfishness about himself; pleasant to tell her the foolish story of Miss St. Roch and her studio.
At the door of their hotel she turned. “Robin. I’ve arranged to drive to Monte Carlo this afternoon. If you like to have a seat in the carriage—? I know you’ve been unwell, so you must be the judge. But really, it’s such a beautiful day, and we can be back before sundown. I’ll ask Denise to come too. She can’t have settled down to work yet.”
When, later, Robin tried to look back on this first drive to Monte Carlo—tried to fix detail—the memory eluded him, dissolved into sunlight and the laughter of a young woman.
In their carriage, with its trotting horses and its fringed linen sun-awning, they drove under great cliffs, through woods of low pine, passed olive-yards and orange and lemon gardens where the vivid, ripening fruit hung burning in the sunshine. Through a village where the children threw spring flowers into the carriage hoping for sous thrown back in return.
Lucy was amused to note the quick friendship that had sprung up between Robin and Denise. For her American friend was, she knew, very often cool with strangers. And amused, a little, at the effect a young man seemed to have upon her. Denise seemed above herself—oddly excited, somehow.
Hearing he was new to all this, it pleased Denise to assume his extreme innocence. They were driving, she told him, through a set scene cunningly contrived to trap newcomers like himself. When they came to Monte Carlo she maintained that its triumphant vulgarity was run by the devil in person. Its unnatural tidiness. Its new paint. Shops that told of foolish spending. Perfumes. Furs. Clothing. Jewellery. They had all been put there by the Lord of Darkness himself. The arsenic green of young grass, grown overnight on the lawns of the Casino gardens. The patterned beds of forced flowers, ready, at the first sign of wilting, to be taken up and replaced by others. The fountains, that were, she said, spraying real diamonds.
To the young man it was a strange afternoon of nonsense, of laughter, of—he did not yet know what else.
This friend of Mrs. Hamont’s bewitched him. Now she was pointing out the mob parading in front of the Casino. Men and women of fashion from every country: French, Russian, British, Austrian, American. All of them come to pour money into this place of absurd luxury. And their hangers-on. Persuasive creatures with furtive eyes, who were ready to procure for you, legally or illegally, anything you paid for: diamonds, shady evidence, commercial beauty. Threadbare dressmakers. Prim ladies’ maids. Gentlemen’s servants. Young women hanging on the arms of old men. Opera-singers. Prostitutes. Placid French provincials who had come to see what this wicked Monte Carlo looked like.
The great Casino, Denise said, was the High Temple of the Fiend himself. Robin walked up the steps to have a look at him. But all he could see was the crowd milling about those who were already seated at the tables. Yet, he could almost believe that the devil was here somewhere among these tense faces; somewhere in these gilded halls, shuttered against the day, and lit, inexplicably, by oil-burning lamps.
It was cooler as they drove back after tea to the pine-woods of Cap Martin. Cooler and more peaceful, with glimpses of a green, glassy sea breathing down there among the rocks.
The others in the carriage, as it seemed to Lucy, had taken their mood from the waning afternoon.
Now Denise St. Roch talked quietly sometimes with Robin, sometimes with Lucy herself, speaking, as it seemed with longing, of her own native Louisiana, of those low, warm lands across the sea where the white people had once been as French as those here in France.
She was a moody creature, Mrs. Hamont knew. Quick in her changes. But she had never seen Denise St. Roch in this, almost homesick mood before.
Chapter Seven
BEL MOORHOUSE had always done her best to maintain a nimbus of superiority around the person of her only daughter Isabel. And this was easier, now that Isabel was safely married and in London. The distance helped. In her house in South Kensington, Bel would say, Isabel dare never for a moment think of putting up with this, that or the other, as she, her mother, had to do in Glasgow. Or, Isabel had scarcely been settled in London before she found that the costs of entertainment would have to be immense. Or again, in London people took far more care over what they wore, and thus Isabel had found herself obliged to do her utmost not to shame her husband.
All of which was another way of saying that Isabel was a perfect housekeeper, that she was triumphantly in the swim, and that she was always exquisitely dressed. Which, perhaps, did Isabel’s good sense less than justice, though her mother’s pride did not see it thus.
Bel’s only daughter had married a young Englishman named James Ellerdale some five years ago. He had come to Glasgow in the early ‘nineties to the head office of Dermott Ships in the hope of making a career for himself. Now, after nine years, he was doing so. He was in charge of the firm’s London office. Jim was a young man of character, and good family—much better family than the Moorhouses. These two things delighted Jim’s mother-in-law. It helped to keep the nimbus snugly tucked about Jim’s wife. That he had no money behind him worried Bel very little. Isabel’s husband was an Englishman, and had an Englishman’s speech and manner. These were qualifications that ranked very high in the eyes of such as Bel.
To those who saw them with less bias—Jim’s own friends, for instance, or neighbours in South Kensington—young Mr. and Mrs. James Ellerdale seemed a nice, unimportant couple. He, very much like every other young Englishman of his kind; she, fair, good to look at, and possessing a not unattractive Scots voice.
But the nimbus was scarcely to be perceived on this February afternoon, as Isabel stood in her mother’s drawing-room in Glasgow. Bel had persuaded her to come north for a fortnight with her three-year-old son, Lewis, writing: “Everything is so appallingly dull, with the war dragging on and with the Queen’s death. Try to persuade Jim to allow you. And, of course, bring the baby with you. His grandfather wants to see him.”
“Who are coming this afternoon, Mother?” Isabel asked, looking down on the fine lace, the glittering silver and the eggshell china on her mother’s tea-table.
Bel hesitated. She had known very
well that Isabel’s twenty-seven years would find no excitement in a tea-party of middle-aged aunts. But Bel had told these aunts of their niece’s arrival and had assured them that Isabel was insisting upon seeing them. A statement, let it be said, which was disbelieved by each aunt in turn.
“Oh, some of your aunts thought they might drop in,” Bel said off-handedly.
“Thought, Mother? How can you read their thoughts?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, dear. They said they thought.”
“Did you invite them?”
“Well, what if I did, Isabel?”
“Oh, nothing. Only you might have said so at once.”
For a moment Bel could not restrain a feeling that it was, perhaps, the idealised Isabel, safe in distant London, who was the most lovable, after all. But she continued in a voice that was sweet and full of reason. “Besides, I think you ought to see them, dear. And of course they are all dying to see Lewis.”
“I wonder.” Isabel gave herself a justifiable look of approval in the great drawing-room mirror, patted her fair hair and smoothed her thin waist; then, turning to sniff a bowl of Roman hyacinths on a side table, looked about the handsome Victorian room. “If they are,” she said at last, “it will only be to compare Lewis with their own grandchildren.”
“I don’t think it’s very kind of you to say that, Isabel.”
Isabel moved over to the window, looked across at the bare trees of the Botanic Gardens, the dull wintry lawns and the dusty shrubberies. Why did her mother so often manage to goad her into sharp words? She looked up and down the terrace, regretting her rudeness. Two figures, fat and familiar, were approaching. “There’s Aunt Sophia and Aunt Mary, just getting out of a tram,” she said, turning round.
Was it possible there were tears in her mother’s eyes? A knife of contrition ran itself into Isabel. She must remember that Tom was in South Africa, that her mother was on edge. She went to Bel quickly. “Oh, Mother! I’m a beast!” she said, putting her arms about her. “I don’t know why I talk like that! I forget you have things to worry you!”
Isabel pulled out her handkerchief and wiped the tears that now threatened to become abundant, adding: “There now. You can show off Lewis and me as much as ever you like!”
II
Mary and Sophia did not, indeed, particularly want to see Isabel and her son. They had children of their own with growing families, and they had seen Isabel often enough. But each of them, different in most ways, belonged to those who would rather be visiting than staying at home. Thus each had expressed much interest in Isabel’s coming and declared that she was longing to see Bel’s London grandchild.
If their hostess had been on the verge of losing her composure, neither of her sisters-in-law was aware of it, as they crossed the room to greet her.
“Bel, dear!” Sophia was saying. “And Isabel! How nice to see you, dear! And I hear you’ve brought that wonderful son of yours with you! We must see him. Where is he?”
Isabel greeted her aunts and was preparing to reply that Lewis was, as one might expect, in charge of Sarah, the right-hand woman of Grosvenor Terrace, who had brought up herself and her brothers, but Sophia was going on:
“And how on earth did you manage to bring him all this way from London, poor wee man? I would have been terrified!”
“I would never have risked it,” Mary said, looking at the cakes on Bel’s tea-table. “We never took the children farther than Arran when they were as young as that.”
Like every young woman who finds her ways with her child criticised by elderly aunts, Isabel stiffened a little. But she had promised to behave. “Oh, he was very good,” she said lightly. “He slept most of the way.”
“And did you keep him in bed all next day?” Mary asked.
Isabel laughed. “Oh, no! He wouldn’t have stayed. He was far too excited at seeing everybody, and he was perfectly well!”
“Well, dear, you know your own child best, of course; but I know that when my children were young—”
“Did you hear that Phœbe stayed for a night with Isabel in London, then came north with her?” Bel said, coming to her daughter’s rescue, while she helped Sophia out of an old and shabby sealskin jacket. An action that Sophia regretted, as the worn lining had been torn badly some days since and she had neglected to mend it.
“Phœbe? Has Phœbe come home? I didn’t know,” Sophia said a little flustered. And then, looking at the jacket, still dangling unnecessarily in Bel’s hand. “Dear me! Is that a tear? I must mend it whenever I get home!”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about leaving a young boy like Robin in a place like Mentone,” Mary said. “Anne looked it up on the map for me after church on Sunday, and we found it was very near Monte Carlo.”
“Well, and what about that, Aunt Mary?” Isabel asked.
“We had had a wonderful sermon on the evils of gambling, dear,” Mary went on. “That’s why I told Anne to look it up for me. Robin would never be in Mentone if he was my boy.”
“But because he’s in Mentone, that doesn’t mean he spends all day at Monte Carlo gambling, Aunt Mary.”
But Mary McNairn, who did not like her pronouncements to be questioned by one of the younger generation, merely drew off her gloves, pulled out the fingers sulkily and said: “That’s all very well, Isabel. We just don’t know.”
“But how was Robin? Didn’t your Aunt Phœbe tell you?” Sophia asked, pushing a strand of hair beneath her hat, folding her jacket to conceal the lining, laying it aside and sitting down.
“Here’s Phœbe to tell you herself,” Bel said, turning to greet her youngest sister-in-law.
“Robin’s all right.” Phœbe had overheard Sophia. She submitted to be kissed by Bel, nodded to her sisters and her niece, then, crossing to the fire, bared her hands, and, slumping down on the rug with the suppleness of a young girl, held them to the blaze to warm them.
“Does he like Mentone, Phœbe dear?” Sophia asked conversationally.
“It’s not a question of like, Sophia. It’s a question of his health.”
“And what does he do with his time?” Mary asked. There was meaning in her voice.
Phœbe, her face turned to the fire, shrugged her shoulders. “He’s got to rest a good deal, of course. And he promised to try to find someone who would teach him French.”
“Aunt Mary’s terrified he gambles away all his money at Monte Carlo,” Isabel couldn’t help saying.
“He’s got no money to gamble,” Phœbe said, without turning. Then suddenly she swung round, her face glowing from the heat, and sat looking at her sisters. “By the way, just as I was leaving Mentone, do you know who spoke to me? Do you remember Lucy Rennie?”
“Of course, Phœbe dear,” Sophia said.
“That’s the girl from Greenhead that ran away with a man and turned into a platform singer,” Mary said evenly.
“Oh, we never knew it was a man she ran away with, Mary,” Sophia interposed generously.
“Yes, it was a man. What else would it be?” Mary’s voice was final and complacent.
“You remember her, Bel, don’t you?”
Bel remembered Lucy Rennie very well. She could have told them things about Lucy Rennie that none of them knew. How their brother, David Moorhouse, had been dangerously attracted to her on the eve of his marriage to Grace Dermott. But all Bel now said was: “Yes, Phœbe, she sang in this room once, for some charity. You must all remember that too.”
“What is she doing now, Phœbe dear?” Sophie asked.
“She’s a widow.”
“Wealthy?” Mary asked.
“She looked wealthy.”
“Is she staying down there?”
“I think so, Mary.”
“Did she meet Robin?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Aunt Mary’s frightened a woman like that may take him to gamble at Monte Carlo,” Isabel said, laughing.
“It’s all very well to laugh. But I never thought much of Lucy Rennie,” Mary s
aid, now settling back in placid anticipation as Sarah arrived bearing a teapot of glittering silver.
“Oh, by the way, Phœbe dear,” Sophia said, as she took a cup from Bel’s hand and gave it to Phœbe, who still sat on the bearskin rug, “just this morning, while William was reading his paper at breakfast, he saw that Henry’s mother’s—that’s old Mrs. Hayburn’s—house in Dowanhill is being advertised for sale again by the people who bought it from the Hayburn boys after she died.”
Phœbe said nothing. Sophia’s words had called up memories. At that time the world had seemed to crumble all about the raw young man who now was Sir Henry Hayburn. Henry and she had come a long way since then; and some of the coming had been painful.
“Why don’t you get Uncle Henry to buy it back, Aunt Phœbe?” Isabel asked.
Phœbe came out of her reverie. “We’re all right where we are. We don’t want to make any change.”
“But it’s a beautiful house, Phœbe dear! And Henry must surely have some feeling for it,” Sophia said. “Besides, now that you are Sir Henry and Lady Hayburn, don’t you think it would be just—?”
“No, I don’t, Sophia.”
“But in Henry’s position, Phœbe dear! Oh, I know you’re always just the same old sixpences! That’s what’s so nice! But all the same, you’ll have more entertaining to do, and it’s such a lovely big house! And besides, as I was just saying to William this morning—”
III
Phœbe walked back to Partickhill muffled in her furs and ruminating gloomily. She went by Dowanhill to have a look at the house Sophia had been chattering about. She stood at the entrance gate looking at it for a moment. It was a great, spreading Victorian villa, with a large garden. She remembered how once, as a young girl, she had paid a formal call with Bel upon the old dragon who was Henry’s mother. That was the only time she had been inside. This house had no place in her affections. She had seldom heard Henry mention it. But still—
In the early twilight, Phœbe pushed on, head down against the chill, dusty wind.
