“Very, very successful. How wrong I was when I told you that I didn’t want you to grow up.”
“I don’t feel grown-up.”
“You will before the end of the evening, I expect.”
As he spoke, Lucy turned his head and, although Kate had heard no sound, she saw Rosalie coming towards them.
She called to them in her light, gay tones.
“Let me look at you, Kate. Oh, how pretty your hair is, and I love your dress.”
“Turn round,” Lucy again commanded his sister. “Slowly. I want her to get the whole effect.”
Kate knew they were looking at her as she revolved slowly.
Both these people whom she felt to be of such overwhelming importance to herself, and upon whom she was expending all the emotional force of her whole nature, were thinking about her, not about one another.
“It’s all lovely,” she heard Rosalie say, and happiness rang in her voice, as it so often did.
Kate’s tumultuous misery lifted.
She turned to face them again, raising her eyes almost timidly, and thus intercepted the locked gaze that held Lucy and Rosalie, spellbound, to one another. Rosalie’s hands were at her breast, and Kate saw that she was wearing there, not a spray of pale-pink roses and maidenhair fern, but two deep-red camellias, with varnished-looking, pointed green leaves.
Kate knew, as well as though she had been told so, that Lucy had given them to her.
(2)
Kate danced and danced.
She was the daughter of the house, and everyone asked her—even old Cousin Joe Newton, whose only other partner was his own wife.
Lucy whirled her round and round the room in the first waltz, and then took her out onto the terrace.
“What is it, darling?” he asked softly.
“Nothing,” answered Kate, startled.
“Yes, it is. Has Mama been scolding you?”
Kate shook her head.
Lucy said very gently: “Whatever it is, you shall come and tell me to-morrow in the orchard. Remember where I used to swing you, before I went abroad?”
“Yes,” said Kate, her voice quivering.
She suddenly felt terrified that she might be going to cry.
“It’s all right.” Lucy’s voice sounded as though he were smiling, although it was impossible to see his face in the shadow of the trees.
“It’ll be all right, you know, Kay love, whatever it is. I’ll take my oath it’ll come out all right. Things always do, for little girls who are good and sweet and pretty, and have intelligent elder brothers to take care of them.”
He wanted to make her laugh, and Kate, accustomed to make Lucy’s wish her law, did give a quavering laugh.
“You’re a silly little sweet,” Lucy told her.
Cecilia, gowned in low-cut black velvet, came sweeping along the terrace, her head turning from side to side.
Lucy, with an arm round Kate’s waist, drew her further into the shadows.
It was of no use.
Cecilia came up to them at once.
“Lucy, you can’t dance with Kate in that absurd fashion.”
“Too late, Mama. I have danced with her—though not in any absurd fashion. We were, on the contrary, much admired.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got to dance with any girls who haven’t got partners. And, Kate, come back to the drawing-room at once. You ought to be dancing with other people, or else seeing that your friends are enjoying themselves.”
Kate followed her mother obediently.
The violins were tuning-up for the next dance.
Kate’s partner came for her, and she saw Lucy approach a very young girl whose name she did not know and ask her to dance.
Rosalie was dancing and she smiled at Kate as she passed her, her blue-green eyes narrowed in a look that Kate knew well and that gave an effect of carrying with it some intimate, unspoken communication. It was a look that always sent a thrill of happiness through Kate.
The happiness was there still, and it was shot through with the sharpest pain that she had ever known.
But Lucy and Rosalie weren’t dancing together at all. Perhaps it was all a mistake, that they cared for one another.
She saw Fanny, looking supremely contented, introducing her husband to a county neighbour, and Cousin Edith Newton, in a black satin dress made high, with an enormous gold locket on her lean bosom, talking hunting with an M.F.H.
She caught Kate’s eye and smiled and nodded.
The evening went on.
Presently one of Kate’s partners, who danced badly, asked her to sit out the last half of a polka with him in the garden where Chinese lanterns had been lit.
When she went back to the ballroom she saw at once that Lucy was dancing with Rosalie. His black head towered above everyone else’s, and made her pale curls look fairer than ever. It seemed to Kate that everyone was looking at them, they danced together so beautifully.
Unable to bear it, she slipped from the scene and ran blindly into a small room on the far side of the hall that had been set aside to serve as a cloakroom.
She had forgotten that two of the maids would be there.
“Can I help you, Miss Kate?”
“No, thank you, Emily,” she answered confusedly. “I—I just wanted to tidy my hair.”
She stood in front of the glass, pushing hairpins in at random.
Emily was watching her, eager to be of use.
“Look, Miss Kate, the gathers at the back of your skirt need a stitch. I could do it in a second.”
Kate stood still while Emily snatched a needle threaded with white from the front of her neat black uniform.
“Just one minute, miss. The gathers aren’t really gone, but they might go any minute, if you take my meaning. This’ll make all safe.”
“Thank you very much,” said Kate mechanically.
Just as Emily had finished and there seemed to be no excuse for lingering any longer, the door opened again and Rosalie ran in.
“Kate darling! I’ve only come for a safety-pin—it’s my petticoat flounce. Wait for me—I shan’t be a minute.”
She was laughing, the apricot tints of her face deepened into rose, her eyes shining. Kate waited.
“That’s all right. Thank you,” said Rosalie to the maid. She went out with her arm round Kate’s shoulders.
“It’s being simply perfect. I’m loving it, aren’t you? Are you enjoying yourself, darling?”
There was the caressing note in her voice that Kate found irresistible.
“Yes,” she lied.
“It’ll be fun talking it all over together afterwards, won’t it?”
“Rosalie, did you find a—a spray of roses on your dressing-table?”
Kate could not imagine what made her ask: the words seemed to come out without volition of her own.
Rosalie replied instantly.
“Darling, of course I did, and I knew they were from you. I was going to thank you.”
“I meant you to wear them,” muttered Kate.
“I know you did. But you see, I wanted them to keep, so I put them in water on the table in my room. I couldn’t bear them to have died at once.”
The warm, candid tones brought with them a surface comfort that Kate was eager to accept.
“Really?”
“Yes, of course. Flowers fade on me,” said Rosalie. “That’s why I wouldn’t wear yours.”
Kate wanted to believe her, but she did not know whether she did or not.
Jealousy tore at her, and she was ashamed and bewildered and desperately unhappy.
(3)
Rosalie’s visit to The Grove came to an end the day after the dance. It was arranged that her father was to drive over and fetch her home.
Cecilia expressed a polite hope that Mrs. Meredith would accompany her husband and that both would come to luncheon.
John Meredith, however, appeared with his sister-in-law, Mrs. Troyle.
Mrs. Troyle apologized for t
he substitution, was assured that it was delightful to see her, and equally to be regretted that Mrs. Meredith had been unable to leave home.
After luncheon and coffee on the terrace, the visitors lingered on. Mrs. Troyle expressed a wish to see the garden, and was taken round it by Cecilia, who was not interested in gardening but liked her possessions to be admired. Presently she said:
“It’s been a great pleasure to my little Kate, and to all of us, to have your niece. I hope we may see her again.”
“How kind of you to say so. Rosalie is a very dear child, and she really has so few pleasures. My sister is very much tied—one can’t pretend otherwise—and Rosalie is quite invaluable at home. Always bright, always ready to help, always devoted to her parents, and thinking of nothing but their wishes,” said Mrs. Troyle, who had prepared this speech in her own mind the night before and was delighted to have so good an opportunity of delivering it.
“She seems a charming girl,” said Cecilia politely.
“More than that. She’s such a thoroughly good, sweet-tempered, happy-natured child. I often say that the man that marries Rosalie will get a real treasure.”
“Is there anyone in particular?”
“Not specially. She’s refused one or two offers, that I do know,—though not from her. But she certainly will marry soon. Men find her very attractive.”
“Yes,” said Cecilia thoughtfully.
Mrs. Troyle, a shrewd person in her own way, felt that she had now found out all she wanted to know and changed the subject.
She was the more confirmed in her secret opinion when she heard Lucy Lempriére enquiring of John Meredith whether he might come over on the following afternoon and have a look at a litter of spaniel pups.
That evening she impressively told her sister:
“If Rosalie plays her cards properly, that young Lemprière will make her an offer. He’s madly in love with her, I’m absolutely certain of it.”
Mrs. Meredith looked as though she dared not allow herself to believe, and yet wanted to do so.
“But, Maude, even if he is—and after all you can’t know—Rosalie may not be in love with him.”
“Nonsense. He’s very attractive, if one doesn’t mind his having that dark skin and that pitch-black hair. Besides, don’t tell me he isn’t thoroughly experienced—he’s got that look. One can’t mistake it. Any man of that type can make a normal girl fall in love with him if he really wants to.”
“Do you suppose—if you’re right, Maude, and of course you may not be after all—but do you suppose he’s said anything to her?”
“If you mean has he proposed, Bertha, I don’t imagine he has, because otherwise surely she would have told you, wouldn’t she?”
Mrs. Meredith shook her head.
“Nowadays, girls don’t always tell their mothers everything. I do quite trust Rosalie, and I think on the whole I’ve got her confidence, but I don’t know that she’d tell me at once if anything of that kind had happened,—especially if she hadn’t quite made up her mind.”
“Bertha!” exclaimed her sister. “She must make up her mind. It’s quite absurd. This would be a most excellent marriage, and if you’re absolutely certain—and you say you are—that there isn’t any black blood there, she’d be an extremely fortunate girl. She couldn’t possibly refuse him.”
“I know. I know. But you’re taking so much for granted. And Rosalie has always said she doesn’t want to marry—though of course I know girls all say that, and it doesn’t mean anything—but I don’t know that I should want her to marry a man she wasn’t in love with. Though, on the other hand——”
Mrs. Meredith became helplessly involved between her real desire to see Rosalie make a successful marriage, her fear lest Maude was being over-optimistic, and her anxiety not to fall into the same error. She watched her daughter covertly but Rosalie was gay and equable as ever.
From babyhood she had been even-tempered and of a happy nature. Over the loss of a pet or the failure of a treat, she had sometimes had piteous outbreaks of sobbing and crying, but these could be soothed by her mother’s caresses, for Rosalie had always shown herself ready to be comforted.
As she grew older she had, so far as her mother knew, neither wept nor required comfort.
One of her most engaging characteristics was the careless happiness that she radiated continually.
It seemed to Mrs. Meredith that she was now neither more nor less happy than usual.
Lucy Lemprière came over, once with Kate and once by himself, to look at the pups and decide which one out of the litter of five he wanted to buy.
The third time that he came, within a week of Rosalie’s return, Mrs. Meredith felt certain that Maude had been right, and that he was in love with her daughter.
She had seen Rosalie walk down the narrow gravelled path of the small garden, to say goodbye to Lucy at the gate to which he had fastened his horse’s bridle.
They stood there, talking to one another, looking at one another and with one of Lucy’s hands clasped over Rosalie’s—careless of the front windows of the little house, overlooking them.
Bertha Meredith experienced a sensation of mingled incredulity, happiness and distress. She found it difficult to believe that Rosalie loved and was loved by a man, as must surely be the case, and that she had given no sign of it.
“She wouldn’t let him hold her hand like that,” thought Mrs. Meredith,” unless they were both in earnest. Surely, surely she wouldn’t.”
When Lucy had gone at last and Rosalie came, singing softly, into the house, it was Mrs. Meredith who looked startled and self-conscious, unable to speak naturally to her daughter.
It took her a long while to summon up her courage.
“Rosalie.”
“Yes, Mother?”
“I think you’d better tell me, my dear. Is there anything between you and Mr. Lemprière?”
“He wants me to marry him.”
Mrs. Meredith felt the room reeling round her, although she had actually anticipated the reply before it came.
“Do you mean that he’s proposed to you?”
Rosalie nodded.
“Then I must say, you ought to have told me. When did this happen?”
“The first time was when I was at The Grove, but he did ask me again to-day. But you know, Mother, I really don’t want to marry anybody.”
“Then you’re not—you don’t feel—you don’t think you could ever, perhaps, fall in love with him?”
Rosalie gazed at her mother thoughtfully.
She was in reality wondering how old people could so utterly forget, as they seemed to do, what it felt like to be loved and desired. How could they so fail to realize that to fall in love was as easy as it was delectable, and that marriage was not the inevitable outcome of a love affair?
Aloud, she said: “Being married is a very, very final sort of thing, isn’t it? I don’t feel I want that.”
“But, my dear, you can’t be an old maid. You must get married some day, and after all, you’re twenty-two. Nobody wants you to marry a man you don’t care for, but are you sure you don’t like him, at all?”
“Of course I like him,” murmured Rosalie, showing confusion for the first time.
“Then the rest would almost certainly come. You know, my darling child, without wanting to be worldly and heartless, I must make you understand that this would be a very good marriage. His mother is a rich woman, and I believe all that West Indian property goes to the two sons. Is the other one married?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Charlecombe surely wouldn’t insist on your living with her at The Grove after you were married, would she? I must say it would be most unreasonable if she did. Young people ought to have their own home. Has he said anything to you about it?”
Rosalie shook her head.
She was sufficiently in love with Lucy to feel that it didn’t matter where they spent their days and nights so long as it was together, but she knew quite well that her f
eeling for him did not go deep enough to make her willing to forsake her independence altogether. She had no faith in her own stability, and no desire to see it tested at Lucy Lemprière’s expense.
Her mother went on with her anxious, futile questioning.
“You don’t care for any other man, do you?”
“No.”
“Not that young man you met with Aunt Maude?”
“The curate? No!” cried Rosalie, breaking out into laughter.
“My dear child, there’s nothing to laugh about. It’s a great honour that any man should care for you enough to ask you to be his wife.”
“But, Mother, he was hardly a man at all. Why, I can’t even remember whether his name was Leslie Barnard or Barnard Leslie. I never can.”
A wave of irritation, that she did not recognize for subconscious jealousy, passed over Mrs. Meredith, who had only been asked in marriage once in her life when she was already over thirty years old, and had accepted her husband without any emotion warmer than gratitude.
“Don’t talk in that flippant, affected way,” she advised her daughter with most unwonted sharpness. “It’s in very bad taste, and I should be ashamed if anybody heard you.”
From that moment there hardened in Bertha Meredith’s mind the determination that her daughter should marry Lucy Lemprière.
(4)
They were engaged.
Lucy had taken Rosalie by storm, pleading with her when her will was drugged with feeling, her reason blurred beneath the impact of his passionate love-making.
When, at last, she told him, almost without knowing that she had said the words, that she would marry him, Lucy swiftly followed up his advantage.
He asked for, and readily obtained, John Meredith’s consent to an early marriage and he had already made sure of Cecilia’s.
Lucy was profoundly and disturbingly in love with Rosalie and knew with sure, unescapable, instinctive conviction that he was not, and probably never would be, certain of her.
He told himself that, in marriage, he could hold her—and knew well enough that he did not believe his own words.
They only served as an excuse for obtaining at whatever present or future cost something without which he felt life would be unendurable.
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