by Robert Neill
‘Quite sure. But---’
‘I thought we’d better, from the way things were going. And I couldn’t help teasing Tommy a little. He needs it.’
‘Never mind his needs. You’ll be wiser to forget him.’
‘Much wiser. But Tommy isn’t easily forgotten.’ A crinkle was beginning to show in her forehead. ‘I shall tease him a little more if I have the chance.’
‘Then you’d better not have it.’
‘No?’ The crinkle was a little deeper. ‘Well, I haven’t it at the moment. He isn’t here. So perhaps I should get my cloak?’
‘Certainly, and before something happens. You seem positively dangerous tonight.’
‘I’m glad you’ve noticed it, I can do much worse than this, by the way.’
‘Then don’t do it now. Go for that cloak.’
‘As you say, sir.’ She laughed suddenly at his puzzled face. ‘I won’t be long.’
She ran lightly through the side door to the cloakroom, and for a long moment he stood staring after her, wondering what this new mood was that had come to her. He found it exciting. It took nothing from her and it added something new, something he had not suspected; though again a darting thought came in that there was a touch of Anice here. It was not what he had looked for in Mary, and suddenly he was asking why he had not. They were kin, she and Anice--of a sort. He had known that all along, but he had never thought of it as a sort that mattered; if, indeed, he had thought of it at all. That, perhaps, had been a mistake.
He went slowly through the opposite door in search of his hat. The footman who had taken it had gone, so he had to find it for himself, and he did so without hurry. He had enough to think about, and he could hardly help being quicker than a woman. So he took his time about it, and when he came back he Was surprised to hear voices in the anteroom. One of them was Luttrell’s, and he hurriedly quickened his step. The other sounded like Mary’s as he flung open the door to the anteroom.
It was still empty except for the two of them. They were in the opposite corner, Mary with her back to the wall and Luttrell seeming to pin her against it.
‘. . . and be friends,’ he was saying as the door opened.
‘Not just---’
She cut it short as she saw the open door and Richard’s angry face as he strode across the room. Then she forestalled him.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him, and to his consternation she seemed to be laughing. ‘Tommy’s playing games and I’m telling him he mustn’t. That’s all.’
‘It didn’t look like games to me. At all events . . .’ He turned icily to Luttrell. ‘You appear to have dismissal. Be so good as to accept it.’
‘What do you say?’ Luttrell turned as icily, and for a moment his eyebrows were drooping dangerously. Then his mood changed and the arrogant amusement seemed to return to him. ‘Take some advice, Grant, and let her speak for herself. You’ll find it safer.’
‘I’m not concerned with safety when it’s---’
‘Stop it,’ said Mary quickly. ‘I won’t have you quarrelling, either of you, and all about nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Oh yes.’ Again she spoke quickly, and with an anxious glance at both of them, and then she seemed reassured. ‘Tommy doesn’t like being teased, and that’s the trouble. He isn’t used to it. Thinks it’s his own privilege.’
‘Well I’m damned!’ said Luttrell. ‘If ever anybody asked for it!’ He swung round suddenly. ‘You’d better be careful, Grant. I knew her before you did, and she’s back where she used to be.’
‘You’ll be wise to be careful yourself in what you say of her.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake . . .’ He sounded exasperated, and then his mood turned to an amusement that did not seem unfriendly. ‘If you’re going to stay ashore with us, do for the love of women learn what year you’re living in. It’s not the last century, and women don’t belong to anybody now. They go the rounds like----’
‘Tommy!’
They swung round at the word, all three of them, as if its imperious tone had jerked them. A burst of music had come with it, gay and impetuous from the quadrilles, utterly incongruous to the moment. The doors from the ballroom had opened, the footmen were standing like statues, and between the doors was Anice, slight, fragile, and lovely. For a moment she stared coolly at all of them, and then she took her bantering tone. She could hardly have seemed more sure of herself.
‘Tommy, I’m getting cross with you.’
‘What?’ Even Luttrell seemed for once to be at a loss. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’
‘I’m not used to being laughed at.’
‘Who’s laughing at you? Can’t you see I’m busy?’
‘Then you shouldn’t be. Don’t you know a quadrille when you hear it?’ She waved vaguely to the open doors and the lilt and sway of the music. ‘You said you’d be back when it started. You let everybody hear you ... and here I am, standing about by myself while you run off being busy! Do you wonder they’re laughing? Now come along.’
‘In a minute. I---’
‘This minute, please.’
‘Anice, I’ve told you---’
‘Darling . . .’ She cut him short on a cool imperious note. ‘If I call you, you’ll come. Didn’t you know that?’
The room was hushed. She stood slim and straight, her brown face still, as if she were summoning her forces, and then she changed. Her head took a little tilt. Her forehead crinkled delightfully. A smile came that was beguiling and bewitching, and her eyes sparkled with a deeper blue. Her eyebrows lifted, and, just perceptibly, she nodded, invitation and command in one; and suddenly he moved forward as if he were a puppet and she had pulled the string. He took a pace, stopped, hesitated, and then went helplessly to her. ‘That’s right, dear.’
She turned as she spoke, and his arm was round her as they went together through the doors, where even the footmen were open-mouthed and staring. For an instant Anice turned her golden head, and there was a flicker of her eye. It might have been a wink--or might not. Then the footmen shut the doors and Mary stood speechless. Richard recovered first.
‘What a woman!’ he said softly.
‘Woman? I’ll believe in witchcraft next.’ Again, for a moment, words seemed to fail her. ‘Tommy Luttrell, the great out-and-outer, with more women than he can ever think of, and she has him on a string like a boy! Did you see it?’
‘I could hardly not do.’
‘Then just take warning. She’s a sort of basilisk, and nobody’s safe within a mile of her. You aren’t, anyway. One gobble and she’ll have you.’
‘She’ll be busy enough with Luttrell.’
‘Don’t you believe it. Come along--I’ll get my cloak.’
‘I thought you were getting it before.’
‘I was. I’ll tell you later.’
She dived through the door before he could answer, and for the next minute or two he was left to pace restlessly in the deserted anteroom. Then she came hurrying back after a quicker collection of a cloak than he had known any woman achieve before, and she led straight to the outer doors.
‘Why the hurry?’ he asked, as they emerged into the quiet of the High Street.
‘I’m taking you out of her reach, and she can keep Tommy if she wants him. I’m glad I’ve seen her at it, though.’
‘You saw her this morning, with Barford.’
‘That’s different. It’s his age--silly old man--and a good many girls could have done it. But not with Tommy. I suppose I’m privileged.’
‘In what?’
‘Seeing her at it. It can’t be often that she lets a woman see the performance. After seeing it, by the way, I don’t blame you in the least.’
‘Kind of you. Taking the evening as a whole---’
‘Oh, I don’t mean tonight. I mean all last winter--anything that happened. I couldn’t possibly blame you. I ought to have known that before.’
‘Mary, I---’
‘Oh, never mind
. Don’t mind anything.’
She said it quickly, and then she slipped her arm into his as they walked lazily down the High Street in the warm summer night. It was half past ten, late for Cheltenham, and only a few lonely footfalls broke the silence, as if those who were not at the Rooms were safe in their valetudinary beds. The sky was taking light as a crescent moon rose above the hills, but except for the twinkle of the scattered oil lamps the street was dark. A slight shake of her fingers, as they rested on his arm, made him think that she was laughing.
‘What’s amusing you?’ he asked.
‘Tommy. Not quite his evening.’
‘He’s several things, but not quite a joke. You haven’t yet told me what happened, by the way. I thought you were getting your cloak when I left you?’
‘I was.’ She nodded solemnly. ‘But it’s really quite simple. We hadn’t told Barford we were leaving, and I thought we’d better. So I went back to him, though I can’t say he was very interested. Eyes on little Ann. Of course I couldn’t help Tommy seeing me. I couldn’t help seeing Tommy.’
It was her sardonic tone, and he began to see the implications as they turned out of the Colonnade into the belt of trees that led to the Crescent.
‘You mean you caught his eye?’ he said. ‘Or did he catch yours?’
‘I’m not quite sure. But anyway, he came. ‘
‘Just as he did with Anice?’
‘Don’t say “just as”. I’m not a basilisk.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder what you are. I’m remembering one thing that you are.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Kin to Anice. It’s a little distant, of course, but---’
‘Left-handed, you mean. Oh, it’s all right. I’m quite pleased about it, really.’
‘Mary, what’s happened to you tonight?’
‘Less rustic. I’m coming out of it, as I told you. More myself.’
‘I must say you’re very cool about it.’
‘It’s best to be. And, Richard---’ She turned suddenly by the lamp at the end of the Crescent. ‘Don’t sound so disapproving. I didn’t really take any risk with Tommy Luttrell tonight. What do you think he was trying to do in the anteroom?’
‘Trying to kiss you, of course. And he looked uncommonly like succeeding.’
‘Oh yes, I think he’d have managed it. But would it have been fatal if he had?’
‘You’re not saying you’d have liked it?’
‘You sometimes have to pay for finding out. But he wouldn’t have gone beyond it, you know--in the anteroom. He might have done somewhere else, of course, but it wasn’t somewhere else. So it was really quite safe. Give me credit for some sense.’
‘For more than sense. You’ve some other qualities.’
‘Oh?’ In the lamplight he saw her head tilt back. ‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know their names, but they’re very pleasant. What do we do now?’
‘I could ask you in. It would be proper, I suppose.’ She glanced round her, at the three lamps in the Crescent and the soft darkness beyond. ‘My Uncle Barford, by the way, seemed a little tired of the dance when I told him we were going. His little Ann, of course had left him. Attached herself to Tommy.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘So he could be here at any moment.’
‘Indeed?’ He slipped an arm round her and turned her from the lamp. ‘Then we’ll walk a little further, if you please.’
‘Your servant always. That’s to say--nearly always.’ He heard her soft laugh as they moved into the dark together, to the bridge and the walk that climbed to the Well. ‘He wasn’t pleased with little Ann.’
‘She’ll get round that.’
‘Round him, you mean.’ Again the soft laugh came. ‘I suppose that’s the way of her--please a man one day, madden him the next, charm him back the day after. I wish I knew why, though.’
‘Why what?’
‘Barford. Why she’s taking so much trouble about him.’
‘We did ask her to.’
‘We never asked for all this--that performance yesterday, and then dancing with him tonight. I don’t see what she wants.’
‘Keeping her hand in, perhaps. Showing what she can do--as with Luttrell just now.’
‘And that was an oddity too. Why did she do it?’
‘I suppose she wanted him.’
‘She certainly got him. But she also saved you from quarrelling with him, and if she’s fond of you---’
She lapsed into silence as they crossed the bridge and began the easy climb between the trees. For the moment he was silent too, half irritated, half embarrassed, by what seemed a reminder of his touch with Anice. It had sounded merely thoughtful, perhaps even friendly, but he could not quite hold back a thrust in return.
‘Or you yourself,’ he told her. ‘You were in an awkward moment with Luttrell when she took him off.’
‘I did say I could have handled him. Still, I’ll admit it was convenient.’ Again he heard the soft laugh. ‘I’ve Tommy all ready for roasting now.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh, Richard!’ The laugh was a chuckle now. ‘He left me, didn’t he? He was trying to kiss me, and he turned from that to go off with her.’
‘You said he couldn’t help it.’
‘Of course he couldn’t, but do you think I shall tell him so? Wait till I meet him.’
‘You’d better not meet him.’
‘For whose sake?’
‘The best thing you can do with Luttrell is to forget him. Then follow his example.’
‘That sounds confused.’ She halted as they came to the pavement that had the dark deserted Well, and then she turned, looking down at the scattered lamps and lighted windows of the town. ‘As for his example--leave him for someone else, do you mean?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘I hope so--when you think of the other examples he sets. Besides . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t really think I should stay with Tommy? Teasing him’s a little different. That’s something I owe him.’
‘Then don’t bother to pay it. It’s asking for trouble.’
‘Which I prefer to being rustic. However . . .’ She turned again, looking now to the outline of the Long Room, dark against the sky. ‘Who would you suggest I leave him for?’
‘That’s obvious too.’
He was quite sure it was as he saw her next to him. Beyond the Room the path rose gently through the trees to Montpellier, and above the trees the sky was bright from the rising moon. He could see her against it, poised and confident, giving something to him of this new mood that had come to her. He moved closer, drawn by the longings of the years, feeling now the femininity of her, which had found expression at last. She was his own world, but the other side of it, the side he had never known at sea, and now he was aware of her. He had his arms round her before he had thought of more, and as she raised her face in the dark he found her lips, strongly and warmly.
‘You see,’ he whispered. ‘We go together.’
‘Do we?’ She spoke quickly, catching at her breath. ‘You’re very sure.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps.’ He saw her turn away, looking up the path. ‘I’ll think of it.’
‘Do you need to?’
‘I don’t know. It’s all new, tonight.’ She meant herself, as something quickly told him, but he glanced up the path as she was doing.
‘We’ll go further,’ he told her. ‘It leads us to the light.’
‘There are shadows too.’
‘They’ll soon be gone. They don’t cause trouble.’ But Anice, as a quick thought came to tell him, could hardly be called a shadow. He put the thought aside. ‘Let’s walk,’ said Mary.
26 Coachman’s Frolic
High summer: hot sun, cobalt sky, and a curricle in the High Street; greys walking lazily, sleek and lovely; panels of primrose, bright-red wheels with hubs of silver; groom behind with folded arm
s, lavender coat, and tall black hat: driver alone, sleek as the greys; firm little hands on milk-white reins; deep-blue eyes, golden hair, twirl of a whip as hats are raised.
And raised they were. Everyone knew Miss Anstey now, and this morning she was plainly at her best, not a care in the world, and her eyes were vivid as her smile gave acknowledgement to one gentleman after another. Even some ladies smiled at her, perhaps unable to resist such radiance, and those who did not smile were at least attentive. It was a sight new to Cheltenham, and not to be missed.
Then Miss Anstey changed, and with the impetuous speed she was noted for. The twirl of the whip became suddenly an excited nourish, and the smile split into a grin as her hands pulled the white reins taut. The curricle turned to the edge of the road and stopped below the Rooms, where Lady St. Hollith was in talk with Captain Grant. They were easily recognized, and he, at least, was seen to have a smile for Miss Anstey.
‘Ha!’ Her voice came happily as she turned in her seat. ‘All well this morning?’
‘Perfectly, thank you.’
‘Says he like a gentleman.’ The crinkle was suddenly in her forehead. ‘I wonder if you went straight home last night?’
‘Anice, you really---’
‘You wouldn’t have done if you’d been with me. Ah well!’
‘What did you do last night?’
‘Oh, I’d Tommy on my hands, and he’s quite a handful--or can be. Still . . .’ She pushed her tongue out for an outrageous instant. ‘He’s safer with me than he might have been with you.’
She had turned quickly to Mary, who seemed to accept the thrust. She nodded slightly.
‘Is that why you took him, Ann?’
‘Partly.’
‘You did it wonderfully. It’s a good thing you can handle him.’
‘I’ve had some practice. And he is exciting.’
‘You probably know best.’
‘About Tommy? I think you’ve met him before. However . . .’ She was suddenly mischievous again as she jerked her head at Richard. ‘If you were by yourself I’d take you for a drive. Set these people talking. But I suppose you’re engaged for the morning?’
‘At least for the morning.’
‘I should have got up sooner. But I’ll tell you what--you should hire a horse again--like London--and then you could start chasing me, and---’
