“Great Scott! And how are you?”
“As you see. Did you have a good time?”
“Yes. I’m only perching. The East has got me!”
“Are you coming to see us?”
“I think not. The burnt child, you know.”
“Yes; you ARE brown!”
“Well, good-bye, Fleur! You look just the same, only more so. I’ll see Michael somewhere.”
“Good-bye!” She walked on without looking back, and then regretted not having found out whether Wilfrid had done the same.
She had given Wilfrid up for—well, for Michael, who—who had forgotten it! Really she was too self-sacrificing!
And then at three o’clock a note was brought her:
“By hand, ma’am; answer waiting.”
She opened an envelope, stamped ‘Cosmopolis Hotel.’
“MADAM,
“We apologise for troubling you, but are in some perplexity. Mr. Francis Wilmot, a young American gentleman, who has been staying in this hotel since early October, has, we are sorry to say, contracted pneumonia. The doctor reports unfavourably on his condition. In these circumstances we thought it right to examine his effects, in order that we might communicate with his friends; but the only indication we can find is a card of yours. I venture to ask you if you can help us in the matter.
“Believe me to be, Madam,
“Your faithful servant,
“(for the Management).”
Fleur stared at an illegible signature, and her thoughts were bitter. Jon had dumped Francis on her as a herald of his happiness; her enemy had lifted him! Well, then, why didn’t that Cat look after him herself? Oh! well, poor boy! Ill in a great hotel—without a soul!
“Call me a taxi, Coaker.”
On her way to the Hotel she felt slight excitement of the ‘ministering angel’ order.
Giving her name at the bureau, she was taken up to Room 209. A chambermaid was there. The doctor, she said, had ordered a nurse, who had not yet come.
Francis Wilmot, very flushed, was lying back, propped up; his eyes were closed.
“How long has he been ill like this?”
“I’ve noticed him looking queer, ma’am; but we didn’t know how bad he was until today. I think he’s just neglected it. The doctor says he’s got to be packed. Poor gentleman, it’s very sad. You see, he’s hardly there!”
Francis Wilmot’s lips were moving; he was evidently on the verge of delirium.
“Go and make some lemon tea in a jug as weak and hot as you can; quick!”
When the maid had gone, she went up and put her cool hand to his forehead.
“It’s all right, Francis. Much pain?”
Francis Wilmot’s lips ceased to move; he looked up at her and his eyes seemed to burn.
“If you cure me,” he said, “I’ll hate you. I just want to get out, quick!”
She changed her hand on his forehead, whose heat seemed to scorch the skin of her palm. His lips resumed their almost soundless movement. The meaningless, meaningful whispering frightened her, but she stood her ground, constantly changing her hand, till the maid came back with the tea.
“The nurse has come, miss; she’ll be up in a minute.”
“Pour out the tea. Now, Francis, drink!”
His lips sucked, chattered, sucked. Fleur handed back the cup, and stood away. His eyes had closed again.
“Oh! ma’am,” whispered the maid, “he IS bad! Such a nice young gentleman, too.”
“What was his temperature; do you know?”
“I did hear the doctor say nearly 105. Here is the nurse, ma’am.”
Fleur went to her in the doorway.
“It’s not just ordinary, nurse—he WANTS to go. I think a love-affair’s gone wrong. Shall I stop and help you pack him?”
When the pneumonia jacket had been put on, she lingered, looking down at him. His eyelashes lay close and dark against his cheeks, long and innocent, like a little boy’s.
Outside the door, the maid touched her arm. “I found this letter, ma’am; ought I to show it to the doctor?”
Fleur read:
“MY POOR DEAR BOY,
“We were crazy yesterday. It isn’t any good, you know. Well, I haven’t got a breakable heart; nor have you really, though you may think so when you get this. Just go back to your sunshine and your darkies, and put me out of your thoughts. I couldn’t stay the course. I couldn’t possibly stand being poor. I must just go through it with my Scotsman and travel the appointed road. What is the good of thinking we can play at children in the wood, when one of them is “Your miserable (at the moment)
“MARJORIE.
“I mean this—I mean it. Don’t come and see me any more, and make it worse for yourself. M.”
“Exactly!” said Fleur. “I’ve told the nurse. Keep it and give it him back if he gets well. If he doesn’t, burn it. I shall come tomorrow.” And, looking at the maid with a faint smile, she added: “I am not that lady!”
“Oh! no, ma’am—miss—no, I’m sure! Poor young gentleman! Isn’t there nothing to be done?”
“I don’t know. I should think not…”
She had kept all these facts from Michael with a sudden retaliatory feeling. He couldn’t have private—or was it public—life all to himself!
After he had gone out with his ‘Good God!’ she went to the window. Queer to have seen Wilfrid again! Her heart had not fluttered, but it tantalised her not to know whether she could attract him back. Out in the square it was as dark as when last she had seen him before he fled to the East—a face pressed to this window that she was touching with her fingers. ‘The burnt child!’ No! She did not want to reduce him to that state again; nor to copy Marjorie Ferrar, who had copied her. If, instead of going East, Wilfrid had chosen to have pneumonia like poor Francis! What would she have done? Let him die for want of her? And what ought she to do about Francis, having seen that letter? Tell Michael? No, he thought her frivolous and irresponsible. Well! She would show him! And that sister—who had married Jon? Ought she to be cabled to? But this would have a rapid crisis, the nurse had said, and to get over from America in time would be impossible! Fleur went back to the fire. What kind of girl was this wife of Jon’s? Another in the new fashion—like Norah Curfew; or just one of those Americans out for her own way and the best of everything? But they would have the new kind of woman in America, too—even though it didn’t come from Paris. Anne Forsyte! – Fleur gave a little shiver in front of the hot fire.
She went up-stairs, took off her hat, and scrutinised her image. Her face was coloured and rounded, her eyes were clear, her brow unlined, her hair rather flattened. She fluffed it out, and went across into the nursery.
The eleventh baronet, asleep, was living his private life with a very determined expression on his face; at the foot of his cot lay the Dandie, with his chin pressed to the floor, and at the table the nurse was sewing. In front of her lay an illustrated paper with the photograph inscribed: “Mrs. Michael Mont, with Kit and Dandie.”
“What do you think of it, nurse?”
“I think it’s horrible, ma’am; it makes Kit look as if he hadn’t any sense—giving him a stare like that!”
Fleur took up the paper; her quick eyes had seen that it concealed another. There on the table was a second effigy of herself: “Mrs. Michael Mont, the pretty young London hostess, who, rumour says, will shortly be defendant in a Society lawsuit.” And, above, yet another effigy, inscribed: “Miss Marjorie Ferrar, the brilliant granddaughter of the Marquis of Shropshire, whose engagement to Sir Alexander MacGown, M. P., is announced.”
Fleur dropped paper back on paper.
Chapter XI.
SHADOWS
The dinner, which Marjorie Ferrar had so suddenly recollected, was MacGown’s, and when she reached the appointed restaurant, he was waiting in the hall.
“Where are the others, Alec?”
“There are no others,” said MacGown.
Marjorie Ferrar reined
back. “I can’t dine with you alone in a place like this!”
“I had the Ppynrryns, but they fell through.”
“Then I shall go to my Club.”
“For God’s sake, no, Marjorie. We’ll have a private room. Go and wait in there, while I arrange it.”
With a shrug she passed into a little ‘lounge.’ A young woman whose face seemed familiar idled in, looked at her, and idled out again, the ormolu clock ticked, the walls of striped pale grey stared blankly in the brilliant light, and Marjorie Ferrar stared blankly back—she was still seeing Francis Wilmot’s ecstatic face.
“Now!” said MacGown. “Up those stairs, and third on the right. I’ll follow in a minute.”
She had acted in a play, she had passed an emotional hour, and she was hungry. At least she could dine before making the necessary scene. And while she drank the best champagne MacGown could buy, she talked and watched the burning eyes of her adorer. That red-brown visage, square, stiff-haired head, and powerful frame—what a contrast to the pale, slim face and form of Francis! This was a man, and when he liked, agreeable. With him she would have everything she wanted except—what Francis could give her. And it was one or the other—not both, as she had thought it might be. She had once crossed the ‘striding edge’ on Helvellyn, with a precipice on one side and a precipice on the other, and herself, doubting down which to fall, in the middle. She hadn’t fallen, and—she supposed—she wouldn’t now! One didn’t, if one kept one’s head!
Coffee was brought; and she sat, smoking, on the sofa. Her knowledge of private rooms taught her that she was now as alone with her betrothed as money could make them. How would he behave?
He threw his cigar away, and sat down by her side. This was the moment to rise and tell him that he was no longer her betrothed. His arm went round her, his lips sought her face. “Mind my dress; it’s the only decent one I’ve got.”
And, suddenly, not because she heard a noise, but because her senses were not absorbed like his, she perceived a figure in the open doorway. A woman’s voice said: “Oh! I beg your pardon; I thought—” Gone!
Marjorie Ferrar started up.
“Did you see that young woman?”
“Yes. Damn her!”
“She’s shadowing me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know her, and yet I know her perfectly. She had a good look at me down-stairs, when I was waiting.”
MacGown dashed to the door and flung it open. Nobody was there! He shut it, and came back.
“By heaven! Those people, I’ll—! Well, that ends it! Marjorie, I shall send our engagement to the papers tomorrow.”
Marjorie Ferrar, leaning her elbows on the mantelpiece, stared at her own face in the glass above it. ‘Not a moral about her!’ What did it matter? If only she could decide to marry Francis out of hand, slide away from them all—debts, lawyers, Alec! And then the ‘You be damned’ spirit in her blood revolted. The impudence of it! Shadowing her! No! She was not going to leave Miss Fleur triumphant—the little snob; and that old party with the chin!
MacGown raised her hand to his lips; and, somehow, the caress touched her.
“Oh! well,” she said, “I suppose you’d better.”
“Thank God!”
“Do you really think that to get me is a cause for gratitude?”
“I would go through Hell to get you.”
“And after? Well, as we’re public property, let’s go down and dance.”
For an hour she danced. She would not let him take her home, and in her cab she cried. She wrote to Francis when she got in. She went out again to post it. The bitter stars, the bitter wind, the bitter night! At the little slurred thump of her letter dropping, she laughed. To have played at children! It was too funny! So that was done with! ‘On with the dance!’
Extraordinary, the effect of a little paragraph in the papers! Credit, like new-struck oil, spurted sky-high. Her post contained, not bills for dresses, but solicitations to feed, frizz, fur, flower, feather, furbelow, and photograph her. London offered itself. To escape that cynical avalanche she borrowed a hundred pounds and flew to Paris. There, every night, she went to the theatre. She had her hair done in a new style, she ordered dresses, ate at places known to the few—living up to Michael’s nickname for her; and her heart was heavy.
She returned after a week, and burned the avalanche—fortunately all letters of congratulation contained the phrase ‘of course you won’t think of answering this.’ She didn’t. The weather was mild; she rode in the Row; she prepared to hunt. On the eve of departure, she received an anonymous communication.
“Francis Wilmot is very ill with pneumonia at the Cosmopolis Hotel. He is not expected to live.”
Her heart flurried round within her breast and flumped; her knees felt weak; her hand holding the note shook; only her head stayed steady. The handwriting was ‘that little snob’s.’ Had Francis caused this message to be sent? Was it his appeal? Poor boy! And must she go and see him if he were going to die? She so hated death. Did this mean that it was up to her to save him? What did it mean? But indecision was not her strong point. In ten minutes she was in a cab, in twenty at the Hotel. Handing her card, she said:
“You have a Mr. Wilmot here—a relative of mine. I’ve just heard of his serious illness. Can I go up and see the nurse?”
The Management looked at the card, inquisitively at her face, touched a bell, and said:
“Certainly, madam… Here, you—take this lady up to Room—er—209.”
Led by what poor Francis called a ‘bell-boy’ into the lift, she walked behind his buttons along a pale-gray river of corridor carpet, between pale-grey walls, past cream-coloured after cream-coloured door in the bright electric light, with her head a little down.
The ‘bell-boy’ knocked ruthlessly on a door.
It was opened, and in the lobby of the suite stood Fleur…
Chapter XII.
DEEPENING
However untypically American according to Soames, Francis Wilmot seemed to have the national passion for short cuts.
In two days from Fleur’s first visit he had reached the crisis, hurrying towards it like a man to his bride. Yet, compared with the instinct to live, the human will is limited, so that he failed to die. Fleur, summoned by telephone, went home cheered by the doctor’s words: “He’ll do now, if we can coax a little strength into him.” That, however, was the trouble. For three afternoons she watched his exhausted indifference seeming to increase. And she was haunted by cruel anxiety. On the fourth day she had been sitting for more than an hour when his eyes opened.
“Yes, Francis?”
“I’m going to quit all right, after all.”
“Don’t talk like that—it’s not American. Of course you’re not going to quit.”
He smiled, and shut his eyes. She made up her mind then.
Next day he was about the same, more dead than alive. But her mind was at rest; her messenger had brought back word that Miss Ferrar would be in at four o’clock. She would have had the note by now; but would she come? How little one knew of other people, even when they were enemies!
He was drowsing, white and strengthless, when she heard the ‘bell-boy’s’ knock. Passing into the lobby, she closed the door softly behind her, and opened the outer door. So she HAD come!
If this meeting of two declared enemies had in it something dramatic, neither perceived it at the moment. It was just intensely unpleasant to them both. They stood for a moment looking at each other’s chins. Then Fleur said:
“He’s extremely weak. Will you sit down while I tell him you’re here?”
Having seen her settled where Francis Wilmot put his clothes out to be valeted in days when he had worn them, Fleur passed back into the bedroom, and again closed the door.
“Francis,” she said, “some one is waiting to see you.”
Francis Wilmot did not stir, but his eyes opened and cleared strangely. To Fleur they seemed suddenly the eyes she had known; as
if all these days they had been ‘out,’ and some one had again put a match to them.
“You understand what I mean?”
The words came clear and feeble: “Yes; but if I wasn’t good enough for her before, I surely am not now. Tell her I’m through with that fool business.”
A lump rose in Fleur’s throat.
“Thank her for coming!” said Francis Wilmot, and closed his eyes again.
Fleur went back into the lobby. Marjorie Ferrar was standing against the wall with an unlighted cigarette between her lips.
“He thanks you for coming; but he doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry I brought you down.”
Marjorie Ferrar took out the cigarette. Fleur could see her lips quivering. “Will he get well?”
“I don’t know. I think so—now. He says he’s ‘through with that fool business.’”
Marjorie Ferrar’s lips tightened. She opened the outer door, turned suddenly, and said:
“Will you make it up?”
“No,” said Fleur.
There was a moment of complete stillness; then Marjorie Ferrar gave a little laugh, and slipped out.
Fleur went back. He was asleep. Next day he was stronger. Three days later Fleur ceased her visits; he was on the road to recovery. She had become conscious, moreover, that she had a little lamb which, wherever Mary went, was sure to go. She was being shadowed! How amusing! And what a bore that she couldn’t tell Michael; because she had not yet begun again to tell him anything.
On the day that she ceased her visits he came in while she was dressing for dinner, with ‘a weekly’ in his hand.
“Listen to this,” he said:
‘When to God’s fondouk the donkeys are taken—
Donkeys of Africa, Sicily, Spain—
If peradventure the Deity waken,
He shall not easily slumber again.
Where in the sweet of God’s straw they have laid them,
Broken and dead of their burdens and sores,
He, for a change, shall remember He made them—
One of the best of His numerous chores—
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