The Lady With Carnations

by A. J. Cronin

  But now, with a quick glance at the clock, Katharine put her worries resolutely from her mind. She got up, went into the bathroom, and turned on the taps. Though she did not in the least feel like going out to-night, nothing in the world would make her disappoint Nancy. Quickly, carelessly, she flung off her clothes and stepped into the bath.

  As she lay in the clear, unscented water, reviving under its warmth, she thought of her niece, and instinctively her frown dissolved, while her lips curved in a smile of tenderness. She adored Nancy, the daughter of her elder sister Grace, who had married Joe Sherwood against her mother’s wishes, lived with him happily for fifteen years, then justified those forgotten prophecies and forebodings by dying with him instantly and ingloriously in a motor smash on the Great West Road. Ever since that tragic day Katharine had taken charge of Nancy, then a lanky girl of fourteen, lavishing every care upon her, completing her education, helping her later to study at the School of Dramatic Art, even yielding indulgently twelve months ago to her urgent wish to go on the stage. Yet, despite this record of devotion, Katharine had a sharp way with those who hinted that she spoiled her niece—nothing was too good for Nancy, the finest, dearest girl in the world.

  It seemed strange to think of her as grown-up now, returning from the Riviera with this calm announcement of her engagement. And yet it was good, the best thing that could happen to her, to be settled quickly, to enjoy the best of her life with her husband and her children. That was Katharine’s wish for Nancy; and to-night, for some queer reason, she wished it with her whole heart.

  Rising, Katharine rubbed herself briskly with a rough towel while her fine white skin glowed respondingly. Subconsciously she could not help a thought of gratitude for her healthy body, without which she could never have withstood the burdens and buffetings of these last few years.

  She dressed more slowly than usual, choosing a frock she had bought during her last visit to Paris. Ordinarily clothes were of scant importance to Katharine. She told herself bluntly she had neither cause nor time for brilliant plumage, and often indeed she went downright shabby—an attitude generally accepted with a smile as the wilfulness of a rich, successful woman. But to-night, with rising spirits, she felt she must make herself presentable for Nancy.

  At half-past eight, seated before the small Vauxhall mirror on her dressing table, she was ready, and she decided, as she studied her reflection, that despite the hectic worries of the day she might pass. A few lines lay beneath her eyes, but her complexion, free of all make-up, was fresh and clear. And the fine colour of her lips, in contrast to the whiteness of her teeth, bespoke a clean and vigorous blood.

  Outside, the rain had ceased, and the pavements, scoured dry by a keen wind, invited a bracing walk. On such a night Katharine liked nothing better than to step out through the quieter streets, her body inclined to meet the breeze, her cheeks tingling from her own brisk passage. But for once, respecting her evening shoes and the proprieties, she resisted the temptation. She took a taxi to the Adelphi, where, at the top of an old Adam house off John Street, Nancy had her rooms.

  There was no lift in the building, which in its lower floors was given over mainly to legal offices, and as Katharine climbed the worn stone steps that circled between high stuccoed walls, the unmistakable promise of the party came towards her. Indeed, when she was admitted, passing through the hands of Nancy’s own smart maid and a formal manservant evoked on such occasions, the big double room was already full of people, cigarette smoke, and noise.

  The moment Katharine entered, Nancy came forward with a little outstretched sign of welcome and kissed her.

  “Oh, Katharine,” she said, “it’s too marvellous to see you again. I’ve been dying to, for days.”

  Katharine smiled. “ Then why didn’t you come round? You got back on Wednesday.”

  “I know, darling, I wanted to most frightfully, but, oh, heavens, you don’t know how rushed I’ve been with the new show in rehearsal, and clothes, and Chris and everything.”

  “I understand.”

  Katharine gazed affectionately at Nancy, thinking how attractive she looked to-night. Though she was only twenty-four, she had a most finished, a kind of streamlined, beauty. Her face was lovely, rather taut, with high cheekbones, slightly slanting blue eyes, and thinly pencilled brows. Her hair was lovely, too—washed to the latest blonde shade, it gleamed like spun gold. Her mouth was thin and scarlet, for upon it Nancy had not spared her lipstick. Her slender figure, under a pretence of indolence, held an odd intensity that was quite electric.

  “Well,” said Katharine, affecting a heavy severity, “I thought you were wedded to your art.”

  Nancy laughed. “ I still am, darling. But that won’t prevent me from marrying Chris, too.”

  “I see,” Katharine smiled, than glanced. “ Where is Chris?”

  “I shall let you look for him, darling!”

  “What!”

  “It’ll be such fun. You’re always so lost among my friends, darling. I’ll bet you can’t find him.”

  “If he’s a gentleman at all”—Katharine’s lips twitched with amusement—“I think he ought to find me!”

  At this point several people arrived with a rush, and Nancy, making a little side grimace towards Katharine, was entangled with them. Katherine walked over to the buffet and established herself strategically beside a plate of caviar canapés. She was too wise to be drawn into the centre of the party, too completely at ease to resent standing with no other company than a sandwich. Katharine’s manner had that remarkable assurance derived less from the polish of many social contacts—though that was there—than from a perfect and natural simplicity. Besides, though parties amused her, Nancy’s remark was accurate: she knew scarcely any of her niece’s friends. One or two she did recognize: David Almoner, the young Shakespearean actor, and his wife, Nina George, the pianist; Arnold Rigby, society photographer; John Herries, director of drama at the B.B.C.; and Tony Ulrick, whose self-illustrated book of comic verse, Libido Limericks—which Katharine had found nasty and effete—was enjoying just the right success. But mostly the faces were unfamiliar to her. She drank a glass of champagne and ate some more caviar. The buffet was excellent. Subconsciously she approved the fact, since in due course she would have to pay for it.

  The party was intensifying now. David Chesham, author of Moonlight in Arcady, the play in which Nancy was to appear, came in, and a moment later Sam Bertram—the celebrated Bertie himself, than whom there was no more famous producer. Both were greeted with rapture by Nancy. Bertram waved to Katharine, an intimate, friendly gesture, indicating that he would join her presently. She gave him an answering smile. She had known Bertie for some years now, had often helped him with the décor of his shows, liked him and his blunt North Country heartiness tremendously.

  The noise increased. Above it Ulrick was reciting one of his poems, while Nina George improvised a ridiculous accompaniment on the piano. Katharine had begun to get a little tired of it when suddenly she heard a voice beside her, intelligible because of its quietness coupled with a certain American penetration of tone.

  “It looks as if you and I are the only sane people here.”

  She swung round, surprised. A tall and rather sallow man, standing carelessly with his hands in his pockets, met her inquiry with a sideways intelligent glance. He was about thirty-five, she judged, dark, thin-faced, and somewhat finely drawn; his odd longish upper lip carried a fine white scar which somehow conferred on him an air of pertinacity and coolness. Indeed, this implicit sense of self-possession backing his original remark jarred unpleasantly on Katharine.

  “Must you include me?” she demanded, her brows elevated slightly.

  “Well,” he drawled, “I guess not, if you don’t want me to.”

  “That would leave just you, then, as the sole representative of wise and long-suffering humanity.”

  He laughed silently, a quiet and unobtrusive mirth indicated only by the puckering of the skin around his eyes.
“ You certainly had me there, Miss Lorimer. I guess you’ve got even more wit than Nancy said, and she told me you had plenty.”

  Katharine frankly stared, and her mouth dropped open. “You don’t mean that…”

  “Sure!” He nodded and smiled, a trifle dryly. “I’m Chris Madden. Please don’t look so disappointed. I know I’m not nearly good enough for Nancy, but believe me, Miss Lorimer, I’m going to try very hard.”

  Mechanically Katharine accepted the firm hand extended to her, while she tried to regain her composure.

  “It’s quite absurd of me to know so little,” she said. “ But I hardly expected that—that Nancy would be marrying an American.”

  “Why, no,” he agreed in his even, reasonable voice. “And for my part, I never expected to marry an English girl.”

  At the thrust, which went deeper because she felt it merited, Katharine coloured, a vivid, unusual flush, and glanced at him quickly. But he was continuing, as if unconscious of her distress:

  “You see, things like that don’t happen the way we plan them. And when Nancy and I met in Nice—Lord, I’ll never forget it—in the bright sunshine—a bit different from your fogs over here, Miss Lorimer—she sure took my breath away.” He cut himself short, recaptured his reserve, and added: “Anyhow, I guess it just came over us, the way it has with people ever since Adam and Eve.”

  “It sounds quite idyllic.”

  His explanation, if indeed it were that, came so inconclusively that it made Katharine’s answer uncompromising and even hostile. Perhaps she was a little jealous of Madden. She compressed her lips ever so slightly, and her gaze travelled over him again, a second and more severe inspection, noting his dress clothes, which owed nothing to Saville Row, and his linen, which was much laundered and far from smart. Her eyes narrowed. All her protective instincts towards Nancy rose up.

  “And what were you doing in Nice, Mr Madden?”

  “Well, it just happened I was having a vacation, the first I’d had for quite a while. I’d been in Rome and Florence and Vienna; then it struck me I’d like to see France again. I’d been there in the War—a matter of seventeen years ago. It sounds a long time, but, gee! when I got around there, it seemed mighty short.”

  “Indeed!” said Katharine without enthusiasm. “Time is always deceiving. Do you plan to spend much of it here, Mr Madden?”

  “That depends on Nancy, Miss Lorimer. I want us to be married pretty soon. But she’s still kind of mixed up with the theatre. She’s got this new play on her mind. They open in Manchester the week after next, and what with rehearsals and that, she‘s rather busy. It’ll all pass, I guess. Anyhow, I figured on hanging around for a bit till she’s through with this piece and then persuading her to come back over to America with me.”

  “That all seems a little sudden, don’t you think, Mr Madden?” Katharine gave him a frosty smile. “We’re very fond of Nancy over here. I myself am particularly attached to her.…”

  “Oh, I know,” he interrupted. “Nancy told me, Miss Lorimer. You’ve been simply swell to her.”

  “However you choose to phrase it, Nancy’s happiness means everything to me. Under these circumstances it’s natural I should want to know something of the man she is going to marry.”

  His face altered, losing its open look of animation, appearing to close up, shuttered by a mature and taciturn hardness. He turned a level glance on her and answered:

  “I follow you.”

  There was a pause. She averted her eyes, conscious that she had wounded him by her rudeness and, paradoxically enough, upset within herself at her own intolerance. And yet, she told herself angrily, how could she be otherwise? She was cross with Nancy for having told her so little. She had expected someone quite different, someone with obvious antecedents and a definite background. This stranger, this lanky American lounging casually into her acquaintance, awoke, if not antipathy, at least a brusque suspicion which for Nancy’s sake she must disprove. Silent under these thoughts, she remained standing rather unhappily beside him when Nancy approached and smiled radiantly on them both.

  “I’m glad you two are on visiting terms. What do you think of him, Katharine, now you know the worst? Isn’t he awful?”

  Madden glanced down at Nancy, his face re-animated, suddenly alive again.

  “I’m afraid she does think I’m awful. The trouble is, Nance, I didn’t expect anyone so young and good-looking as Miss Lorimer, and she didn’t expect anyone nearly so tough as me. I tell you, we haven’t hit it off at all.”

  “She’s very haughty,” said Nancy, “but once you know her properly, she’s really not too bad.”

  Katharine smiled constrainedly; she felt her nerves absurdly on edge.

  Nancy continued: “ But, seriously, Katharine darling, I want you to get to know Chris properly. You mightn’t think it, but he improves on acquaintance. You’ll find out when we go down to Wimbledon for the week-end.”

  Katharine answered with an unusual touch of sarcasm: “That’s something to look forward to.”

  “At least you’ve been warned,” laughed Nancy confidently. “ Now, come along, both of you, and have some fun.”

  But Katharine, though she tried hard to lose her secret apprehension, did not have much fun. And when an hour later she left for home, she carried with her a curious feeling of uncertainty and dismay.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday arrived—a day of chilly winds which swept round the street corners with unexpected and intimidating violence. The weather, in fact, during these last three days had been so bad that Nancy had gone under to it with a feverish cold. In bed, her temperature two degrees over normal, she was strictly forbidden to get up. But she insisted that Madden should carry out the arrangements made for him and go, at least for one night, to Wimbledon. He could do no good in London, and in any case she would not have him hanging about her flat.

  Katharine, not particularly happy at this turn of events, deferred leaving until as late as possible. It was nearly four o’clock when she rang Madden from her office and told him that she was free. He had apparently been awaiting her message, for he came almost immediately to King Street. Here Katharine occupied the first two floors of a narrow, bow-fronted building which ran back deep towards a cobbled courtyard, access to which lay through an old stone archway with carriage posts and a venerable gas lamp. It was an ideal atmosphere for a business such as hers, and she had fostered it with care. Outside the Georgian tradition had been skilfully developed. There was no display and no sign, merely a small brass plate with the name ‘Antika Ltd’ upon the reeded lintel; yet through the opalescent windows it was possible to discern the subdued interior of a panelled room holding many rich and mellow undertones, from the glinting patina of Queen Anne walnut to the dull lustre of an eighteenth-century brocade.

  On the floor above, reached by a wide staircase with fluted balustrades and finely carved newel posts, Katharine had her office proper, a long, bright room with a large desk squat in its middle, an open fireplace, a safe in the corner, a fine Kirman carpet on the floor, and various framed schemes of décor and colour hung on the walls. Much of Katharine’s business turned on the preparation of such schemes and their practical application in the restoration of old houses. She had built her unique reputation upon such expert work, and in the past her commissions, both large and profitable, had taken her inside several of the major country seats of England. She was no mere marchande de meubles, nor did she choose to lumber herself with a warehouse full of goods—her stock, though choice, was small. She preferred to buy selectively and only when a definite objective lay in sight. Skill, rather, was her stock in trade. It was this flair for the proper destination of an objet d’art which had caused her to secure the Holbein miniature with a view to steering it to the famous Brandt collection in New York.

  Four o’clock struck from the lacquer bracket clock which stood upon the mantelpiece when Madden came into the office. Katharine arose at once and held out her hand. In the inte
rval since the party she had reasoned with herself, and, driven by her inveterate sense of fairness, she had attempted to conquer her dislike of Madden and had decided to give him at least a chance.

  “How is Nancy?” she asked.

  “She’s sort of middling,” he answered. “She must stay in bed. Got fever still. She would have me come along.”

  Katharine nodded. “ She telephoned me. I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting.”

  “That’s all right, Miss Lorimer.” He gave her his unhurried smile. “I’ve hung around for Nancy at the theatre so much I’m getting used to waiting. It’s a change for me, having time on my hands and not being tied up for every second. I guess I’ll come to like it. At least, maybe.”

  While she pulled on her gloves, his eyes travelled over the room with calm and inoffensive appreciation.

  “Nice place you have here. If it isn’t raw to say it, I like your things a lot—especially that lovely carpet.”

  “Yes,” said Katharine, and with an idea of some rudimentary explanation she continued politely: “ It’s eighteenth-century Persian. It probably took one man ten tears to make it. All the colours, too—they’re the old vegetable dyes.”

  “Of course,” he nodded simply. “ It’s a genuine Kirman-Lavehr, isn’t it?”

  Katharine glanced at him sharply, quite taken aback by his discernment. It bespoke keen accuracy of perception that he should place the antique rug, not only to its province, but to the actual district of its origin.

  “You know about antiques, then?” she asked, gazing at him curiously.

  He answered soberly. “ No, honestly, I’m quite ignorant. At least judged by your standards. But I’m interested in these things, and I’ve tried to get wise to them. I’ve read a lot, and lately in Europe I’ve been over most of the galleries. I get quite a kick out of the things our American civilization doesn’t quite cover, like Persian carpets and Italian furniture—and, oh, French salad, if you like!” He smiled. “I’m a regular old master at French salads myself.”