Part 18

"I'll take your questions in order," said Christina, solemnly ticking them off on her finger. "He has been here, if he is Ronnie; he said a lot of things. It was certainly wonderful for me that he came. He asked after you, but didn't seem to be cast down to find you were out. Was that the lot? I hope so."

"But Christina!" she was quivering with excitement. "What do you think of him?"

"I--think--he--is--sublime!"

Evie glanced at her resentfully, suspecting sarcasm; saw that her sister was in earnest, and seeing this, was confounded.

"He is very nice," she said less enthusiastic, "yes--a dear--did you really get on with him, Chris? How queer! And after all that you've said about him! Didn't your conscience prick you--?"

Christina sent her red locks flying in a vigorous head-shake.

"No, it wasn't conscience," she said.

Evie, from being boisterously interested, became quietly distrait.

"Of one thing I am certain," volunteered Christina, "and it is that he will never behave dishonorably or give you, or for the matter of that, mother and me, one hour's real pain."

"No--I'm sure he won't," said Evie awkwardly, the more awkward, because she was trying so hard not to be.

"Such a man couldn't be mean. I am certain of that," Christina went on. "Evie, I am not scared about you any more--and I was, you know. Just scared! Sometimes when you came back from seeing Ronnie, I dared not look at you for fear--I didn't exactly know what I feared. Now--well, I feel that you are in good hands, darling, and I shall not be thinking every time you go out: 'I wonder if she will come back again?'"

Evie's face was burning. If she had spoken, she would have betrayed herself. She became interested in the contents of a hanging cupboard and hummed a careless tune, shakily.

"Are you singing or is it the hinge?" asked Christina.

"You're very rude--I was singing--humming."

"There must be music in the family somewhere," said Christina, "probably it goes back to our lordly ancestor--"

"I told Teddy about that, about Lord Fransham--"

"Did you tell Ronnie?"

Evie wondered if she should say. Christina was so excellently disposed toward him that it would be a pity to excite her resentment.

"Yes--he laughed. He said everybody has a lord in his family if he only goes back far enough. Teddy thought it was wonderful and he said--you'll laugh?"

"I swear I won't."

"Well--he said that he knew that I had aristocratic blood by my instep, it is so arched. And it is you know, Chris, just look!"

"Shurrup!" said Christina vulgarly.

"Well--he did. Teddy isn't half the fool you think him. I don't exactly mean you, Chris, but people. His father has a tremendous farm, miles and miles of it. He sent Teddy over here for six months. What do you think for?"

Christina couldn't think.

"To find a wife!" said Evie. "Isn't it quaint? And do you know that Teddy is staying at the Carlton-Grand. I thought he was living with his aunt in Tenton Street and I only discovered by accident that he was staying at a swagger hotel. He said he would write and tell his father about our lord."

She sighed heavily.

"I like Teddy awfully. He is so grateful for--well, for anything I can do for him, such as putting his tie straight and telling him about things."

"Why don't you marry Teddy?"

A few weeks ago Evie would have snorted scornfully. Now she was silent for a long time. She sighed again.

"That is impossible. I'm too fond of Ronnie and I believe in keeping--in keeping my word. Teddy's father is building a beautiful little house for him. And Teddy says that he has a quiet horse that a girl could ride. He believes in riding astride, so do I. I've never ridden, but that is the way I _should_ ride--through the corn for miles and miles. You can see the mountains from Teddy's farm. They are covered with snow, even in the summer. There is a place called Banff where you can have a perfectly jolly time, dances and all that. In the winter, when it is freezingly cold, Teddy goes to Vancouver, where it is quite warm. He has an orange-farm somewhere."

For the third time she sighed. Christina in her wisdom, made no comment.

V

Evie usually had her breakfast alone. Christina was late and Mrs. Colebrook breakfasted before her family came down and was, moreover, so completely occupied in supplying the needs of her youngest daughter, that it would have been impossible to settle herself down to a meal.

Evie was generally down by a quarter to eight; the post came at eight o'clock. Until recently Evie had no interest in the movements of that official. Very few letters came to the house in any circumstances and of these Evie's share was negligible.

Teddy brought a new interest to the morning for he was a faithful correspondent, and the girl would have known long before, that he was an inmate of a superior caravanserie, had not the youth, in his modesty, written on the plainest of notepaper. Not then, nor at any other time, did the mail have any thrill for Mrs. Colebrook. She had a well-to-do sister living in the north who wrote to her regularly every six months. These letters might have been published as a supplement to the Nomenclature of Diseases, for they constituted a record of the obscure ailments which inflicted the writer's family. She had a sister-in-law living within a mile of her, whom she seldom saw and never heard from. Whatever letters came to the house were either for Christina or Evie, generally for Christina.

Ambrose Sault had once presented Christina with five hundred postal cards. It was one of the freakish things that Ambrose did, but behind it, there was a solid reason. Christina enjoyed a constant supply of old magazines and out-of-date periodicals. Evie collected them for her from her friends. And in these publications were alluring advertisements, the majority of which begged the reader, italically, to send for Illustrated Catalogue No. 74, or to write to Desk H. for a beautiful handbook describing at greater length the wonders of the articles advertised. Sometimes samples were offered, samples of baby's food, samples of fabric, samples of soap and patent medicine, and other delectable products.

Christina had expressed a wish that she could write, and Ambrose had supplied the means. Thereafter Christina's letter-bag was a considerable one. She knew more about motor-cars, their advantages over one another, their super-excellent speeds and economies, than the average dealer. If you asked her what car ran the longest distance on a can of petrol, she would not only tell you, but would specify which was the better of the gases supplied. She knew the relative nutritive qualities of every breakfast food on the market; the longest-wearing boots and the cheapest furniture.

Evie had finished her meal when the postman knocked.

"A letter from Teddy and a sample for Christina, I suppose," speculated Mrs. Colebrook, hurrying to the door. She invariably ran to meet the postman having a confused idea that it was an offence, punishable under the penal code, to keep him waiting.

There was no mail for Christina.

"Here's your letter."

Evie took the stout and expensive looking envelope, embossed redly with the name of the hotel.

"Who's writing to me?" asked Mrs. Colebrook. She turned the letter over, examined the handwriting, critically deciphered the post-mark--finally tore open the flap of the envelope.

"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Colebrook. She looked at the heading again. "Who is 'Johnson and Kennett'?" she asked.

"The house agents? There is a firm of that name in Knightsbridge. What is it, mother?"

Mrs. Colebrook read aloud.

"_Dear Madam_: We have been requested to approach you in regard to work which we feel you would care to undertake. A client of ours has a small house on the continent, for which he is anxious to secure a housekeeper. Knowing, through Dr. Merville, that you have a daughter who is recovering from an illness, he asks me to state that he would be glad if your daughter accompanied you. There is practically no work, three servants, all of whom speak English, are kept, and our client wishes us to state that the grounds are extensive and pretty, and hopes that you will make the freest use of them, and the small car which he will leave there. He himself does not expect to occupy the house, so that you will be practically free from any kind of supervision."

The salary was named. It was generous.

Mrs. Colebrook looked over her glasses at the wondering Evie.

"Mother! How perfectly splendid!"

But Mrs. Colebrook was not so enthusiastic. Change of any kind was anathema. She had acted as housekeeper in her younger days, so that the work had no terrors for her, but--abroad!

Foreign countries meant peril. Foreigners to her were sinister men who carried knives, and were possessed of homicidal tendencies. They spoke a language expressly designed to conceal their evil intentions, and they found their recreation in plotting in underground chambers. There was a cinema at the end of Walter Street.

"There is something written on the other side," said Evie suddenly.

Mrs. Colebrook turned the sheet.

"The invitation extends to your younger daughter, if she would care to accompany you."

"Well!" said Evie, and flew up the stairs to Christina's room.

"Christina! What do you think! Mother has had a letter from a house agent offering--"

"Don't tell me!" Christina interrupted, "let me guess! They've offered her a beautiful house in the country rent free--no? Then they've offered--let me think--a house in a nice warm climate where I can bask in the sunshine and watch the butterflies flirting with the roses!"

Evie's jaw dropped.

"Whatever made you think--?"

Christina snatched the letter and read, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Oh, golly!" she said and laughed so long that Evie grew alarmed.

"No, I'm not mad, and I'm not clairvoyant. Mother, what do you think of it?"

Mrs. Colebrook had followed her daughter upstairs.

"I don't know what to think," she said. She was one of those people who welcome an opportunity to show their indecision. Mrs. Colebrook liked to be "persuaded", though she might make up her mind irrevocably, it was necessary that argument round and about should be offered, before she yielded her tentative agreement.

Nobody knew this better than Christina. She drew a long sigh of relief, recognising the signs.

"We'll talk it over after Evie has gone to her pill-shop," she said, and for once Evie did not contest a description of her place of business, which usually provoked her to retort.

"I only want to say, mother, that you need not worry about me. I can get lodgings at one of the girl's hostels. I don't think I want to go abroad. In fact, I know that I don't. But it would be fine for Christina. It is my dream come true. I've always had that plan for her--a place where she could sit in the sunshine and watch the flowers grow."

Christina's smile was all loving-kindness; she took the girl's fingers in her hand and pinched them softly.

"Off to your workshop, woman," she ordered. "Mother and I want to talk about the sunny south."

"I'm not sure that I can take it," said Mrs. Colebrook dismally, "I don't like the idea of living in a foreign place--"

"We'll discuss that," said Christina in her businesslike way. "Did those linoleum patterns come?"

VI

There was no letter for Evie when she arrived at the store. Curiously enough she was not as disappointed as she expected to be. There was a chance that Ronnie would have written after his visit to the house, but when she found her desk bare, she accepted his neglect with equanimity.

Her love for Ronnie was undiminished. She faced, with a coolness which was unnatural in her, the future he had sketched, and if at times she felt a twinge of uneasiness, she put the less pleasant aspect away from her. It would not be honorable to go back on her word, even if she wanted to do so. And she did not. As to the more agreeable prospect she did not think about that either. It was easier to dismiss the whole thing from her mind. She told herself she was being philosophical. In reality, she was solving her problem by the simple process of forgetting it.

Leaving the store at midday to get her lunch, she saw Ronnie. He was driving past in his big Rolls and apparently he did not see her. Why was she glad--for glad she was? That thought had to be puzzled out in the afternoon, with disastrous consequences to her cash balance, for when she made her return that night, she was short the price of a hot-water bottle.

But Ronnie had seen her, long before she had seen him. He was on his way to lunch with a man he knew but toward whom he had for some reason conceived a dislike. It was rather strange, because Jerry Talbot was the one acquaintance he possessed who might be called "friend". They had known one another at Oxford, they had for some time hunted in pairs, they shared memories of a common shame. Yet when Jerry's excited voice had called him on the telephone that morning and had begged him to meet his erstwhile partner at Vivaldi's, Ronnie experienced a sense of nausea. He would have refused the invitation, but before he could frame the words, Jerry had rung off.

Vivaldi's is a smart but not too smart restaurant, and had been a favorite lunching place of Ronnie's. It was all the more unreasonable in him, that he should descend beneath the glass-roofed portico with a feeling of revulsion.

Mr. Talbot had not arrived, said the beaming _maître de hotel_. Yes, he had booked a table. Ronnie seated himself in the lounge and a bellboy brought him an evening newspaper which he did not read. Had he done so, he would not have waited.

Half an hour passed and Ronnie was feeling hungry. Another quarter of an hour.

"I am going into the restaurant--when Mr. Talbot comes, tell him I have begun my lunch."

He was shown to the table and chose a simple meal from the card. At any rate, Jerry's unpardonable rudeness gave him an excuse for declining further invitations.

He had finished his lunch and had signalled for his bill when, looking round, he recognized two men at one of the window tables. He would not have approached them, but Sir John Maxton beckoned.

Dr. Merville would gladly have dispensed with his presence, thought Ronnie, and wondered if he had intruded into an important conference.

"Come and sit down, Ronnie. Lunching alone? That is rather unusual, isn't it?"

"My friend disappointed me," said Ronnie and he saw the doctor's lip curl.

"Did she--too bad," said Maxton.

"It was a 'he'," corrected Ronnie, and knew that neither man believed him.

He noticed Sir John glancing at his companion.

"Ronnie, I wonder if you can help us. Do you remember the flotation of that Traction Company of Steppe's?"

"I don't think it is much good asking Ronnie," the doctor broke in with a touch of impatience. "Ronnie's memory is a little too convenient."

"I remember the flotation--in a way," admitted Ronnie.

"Do you remember the meeting that was held at Steppe's house when he produced the draft of the prospectus?"

Ronnie nodded.

"Before we go any farther, John," interrupted Merville, "I think it will be fair to Ronnie, if we tell him that there is trouble over the prospectus. Some of the financial papers are accusing us of faking the assets. The question is, was I responsible, by including properties which I should not have included, or did Steppe, in his draft, give me the facts as I published them? I don't think Ronnie will remember quite so vividly if he knows that he may be running counter to Steppe."

Ronnie did not answer.

"You see what I am driving at," Sir John went on. "There may be bad trouble if the Public Prosecutor takes these accusations seriously--which, so far he hasn't. We want to be prepared if he does."

"I cannot remember very clearly," said Ronnie. "I am not a member of the Board. But I do recall very clearly Steppe showing a draft and not only showing it, but reading it."

"Do you remember whether in that draft he referred to the Woodside Repairing Sheds; and if he did, whether he spoke of those as being the absolute property or leased property of the company?"

"The absolute property," said Ronnie. "I remember distinctly because the Woodside Repairing Shops are on the edge of a little estate which my father left me--you remember, John? And naturally I was interested."

Merville was dumbfounded. Never in his most sanguine moments did he suppose that Ronnie would assist him in this respect. Ronnie, who shivered at a word from Steppe, whose sycophantic servant he had been!

"This may come to a fight," said Sir John, "and that would mean putting you in the box to testify against Steppe. Have you quarrelled with him?"

"Good gracious, no!" said Ronnie in surprise. "Why should I quarrel with him? He doesn't worry me. In a way he is amusing, in another way pathetic. I feel sometimes sorry for him. A man with such attainments, such powers and yet so paltry! I often wonder why he prefers the mean way to the big way. He uses his power outrageously, his strength brutally. Perhaps he didn't start right--got all his proportions wrong. I was working it out last night--the beginnings of Steppe--and concluded that he must have had an unhappy childhood. If a child is treated meanly, and is the victim of mean tyrannies, he grows up to regard the triumph of meanness as the supreme end in life. His whole outlook is colored that way, and methods which we normal people look upon as despicable are perfectly legitimate in his eyes."

"Good God!" said Sir John aghast. It was the man, not the arguments which startled him.

"Children ought not to be left to the chance training which their parents give them," Ronnie went on, full of his subject, "but here, I admit, I am postulating a condition of society which will never be realized. Some day I will start my Mother College. It is a queer sounding title," he said apologetically, "but you will understand I want a great institution where we can take the illegitimate children of the country, the unwanted children. They go to baby farmers and beasts of that kind now. I want a college of babies where we will teach them and train them from their babyhood up to think and feel goodly, not piously. That doesn't matter. But bigly and generously. To have high ideals and broad visions; to--"

He stopped and blushed, conscious of their interest and stupefaction; squirmed unhappily in his chair, and rubbed his chin nervously with the knuckles of his hand.

Sir John Maxton leaned back in his chair, his face twitching.

A waiter was passing.

"Bring me a brandy," he said hoarsely, "a double brandy."

Christina had only wanted water.

VII

"What flabbergasts me is Ronnie's willingness to go against Steppe," said the doctor, just before he dropped Sir John at his chambers.

He had done most of the talking since they left Vivaldi's and Maxton had been content that he should.

"I can only suppose that Ronnie has had a row with Jan."

"Tell me this, Merville," said Sir John, leaning his arms on the edge of the door and speaking into the car, "if you believe that Steppe is the rascal I pretty well know him to be, why are you allowing Beryl to marry him?"

An awkward question for the doctor.

"Oh, well--one isn't sure. I may be in error after all. Steppe is quite a good fellow."

"Do you owe him money?" asked Maxton quietly.

Close friendship has its privileges.

"A little--nothing to speak of. You don't think I would sacrifice Beryl--?"

"I don't know, Bertram--I don't know. Why ever you took up with that crowd is beyond me."

"By the way," said the doctor, anxious to switch to another subject, "that isn't an original idea of Ronnie's--the Mother College, or whatever he calls it. Poor Ambrose Sault had exactly the same dream. I never heard the details from him, but he has mentioned it. Funny that Ronnie is taking it up?"

"Yes," Sir John waved his hand and went into the building.

He rang for his clerk.

"Do you remember a young lady coming to see me a few days ago? A Miss Colebrook--have we any record of her address?"

"No, Sir John."

"H'm--put me through to Dr. Merville's house in Park Place--I want to speak to Miss Merville."

A minute later:

"Yes--John Maxton speaking, is that you, Beryl? I want to know Miss Colebrook's address--thank you," he scribbled on his blotting pad. "Thank you--no, my dear, only I may have to get in touch with her."

He remembered after he had hung up the telephone, that Ambrose Sault had propounded a will in which the address had appeared, but the will was in the hands of Sir John's own lawyers. Ambrose had left very little, so little that it was hardly worth while taking probate. But the recollection of the will gave him the excuse he wanted.

"Sir John rang me up, father, he asked for Christina's address. Do you know why?"

"No, dear. I wonder he didn't ask me. I have been lunching with him--and Ronnie. Rather, Ronnie joined us after lunch was through--he was loquacious and strange. H'm--"

"How strange?"

"Beryl, did you notice the other night--I agree with you, Steppe was brutal--how deep his voice had grown? Boys' voices change that way when they reach an age, but Ronnie isn't a boy. Changed--and his views on affairs. He held John spellbound whilst he delivered himself volubly on illegitimate children and the future of the race. And the curious thing is that Ronnie hates children. Loathes them; he makes no secret of that. Says that they are irresponsible animals that should be kept on the leash."

"He said that today?"

"No--oh, a long time ago. Now he wants a big institution where they can be trained--maybe it is a variation of his leash and cage theory. How did you get on?"

Steppe had been to lunch and was in the hall about to take his departure when Sir John rang.

"He came," she said indifferently, "it was a--pleasant lunch. I think he enjoyed it. I had mealies for him and he wrestled with them happily."

"Did you discuss anything?"

"The happy day?" she said ironically. "Yes, next Tuesday. Quietly. We go to Paris the same night. He wants the honeymoon to be spent in the Bavarian Alps, and he is sending his car on to Paris. I think that is all the news."

Her indifference bothered him.

"Steppe, I am sure, is a man who improves on acquaintance," he said encouragingly.

"I am sure he does," she agreed politely, "will you tell Ronnie, or shall I write to him?"

"I will tell Ronnie," said the doctor hastily. "I don't think I should encourage a correspondence with him, if I were you, Beryl. Jan doesn't like it. He was furious about you insisting upon Ronnie coming out with us the other night."

"Very well," said Beryl.

"I think--I only think, you understand, that Steppe is under the impression that you were once very fond of Ronnie, or that you had an affair with him. He is a very jealous man. You must remember that, Beryl."

"It almost seems that I am going to be happily married," she said with a queer smile.

She did not write to Ronnie. There was nothing to be gained by encouraging a correspondence--she agreed entirely with her father on that point. Steppe she dismissed from her thoughts just as quickly as she could.

Why had Sir John asked for Christina's address? There was no reason why he should not. Perhaps Ambrose left a message--but that would have been delivered long ago. And--if Ambrose had left any message, it would be to her. The will perhaps. The doctor had told them both that Ambrose had left his few possessions to Christina. She was glad of that. Yes, it must be the will.

This served at any rate to explain Sir John's call.