Part 13

"I expect Lexie would love to go," she cogitated. "And so should I. But I ought to stop at the flat.... Would it be very wrong if I didn't? He--Fred--is very strict about me. I wish I'd asked him...."

Chalfont did not attempt persuasion.

"All right," she said suddenly. "I'll come. It would be a shame to prevent Lexie having a good time. She wouldn't come without me. It will be simply lovely!"

"I'll motor you both down on Christmas Eve and bring you back in time for the theater on Boxing night. I think you'll like the old place."

"Shall I? What makes you think so?"

"For one thing because of the cedars on the lawn."

"Like in my dream? Oh, ripping!"

"And there is the home-farm. You like animals."

Maggy's face lighted up. "Will there be lambs and calves and fat squealy little pigs?"

"Hardly at this time of year," answered Chalfont, amused. "You'll have to come in the spring again to see them."

"I don't think I could resist it, if you invited us. May I ask you something?"

"Anything you like. Fire away."

"It's this," she said with considerable hesitation. "I would love to spend a _real_ Christmas Day. Would you mind? One goes to church, doesn't one? And I would like people not to know we were actresses. I would like--if you could manage it--to have a Christmas tree. Couldn't you ask some village children--a lot of them? Children are always in season even when lambs and calves aren't. That's one blessing."

"I think that could be managed. Do you like children?" he asked, surprised at her earnestness.

"Like them? It's the one part of Heaven that sounds most attractive. You know where it says in the Bible: 'Suffer little children ... and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,' and then a lot more toward the end about gold and jasper and glassy seas and streets of gold. I expect there must be a nursery for the children who died young. I'd like to squeeze in with the little angels!"

"You funny child!"

"I'm not a child. It's only my silly way of talking. I'm a woman. Why, this"--she held up her little finger--"this knows more about love and pain and everything else than--Lexie's whole body. Now I must be off. I do talk to you. What makes me? I only meant to stop a minute." She was wrought up at the prospect of spending Christmas--a real country Christmas--under such delightful conditions as she had outlined and Chalfont had tacitly acquiesced in. Too impatient to wait until evening to impart the joyful news to Alexandra she made for Sidey Street as fast as a taxicab could take her. There, breathlessly she told her news.

"How nice of him!" declared Alexandra. "Did you meet him accidentally, or how?"

"How," answered Maggy, and colored violently under Alexandra's clear and searching eyes. "I had to go to his house--on business," she floundered, giving herself away.

Alexandra could not help laughing.

"Oh, Maggy! Then the diamonds I wore last night were his!"

"Nothing wrong with them, was there?"

"No, but--but you must be very friendly with him. Have you seen him a lot since he came back?"

"When I went to borrow them and again to-day when I took them back," replied Maggy, regaining her self-possession.

"I wonder what he thinks of you!"

"Oh, just mad," said Maggy.

In a week's time it would be Christmas. The joys of anticipation helped her to endure Woolf's absence. She knew that her visit to Purton Towers would incense him, but she did not intend going it on that account. She would not be doing Woolf or herself any wrong in going. When he returned she would be quite honest and tell him all about it. Meanwhile she wrote to Chalfont.

"_Dear Lord Chalfont:_

"Lexie will love to come. Me too. But would you mind very much if I brought Mrs. Slightly and Mr. Onions?

"Yours sincerely, "MAGGY DELAMERE."

Her large and sprawly handwriting covered the sheet. Had it not been for the afterthought in the form of a postscript which she added overleaf, Chalfont might have remained in ignorance of the identity of the two additional guests. It ran thus:

"I forgot you don't know them. Mrs. Slightly could sleep anywhere, being a cat. Mr. Onions is my dog and has a basket in my room. At any other time of the year I would not mind leaving them in charge of the porter at the flats but at Christmas everybody loses their heads and they might not get fed. They are not well bred but they have good manners."

Chalfont did not mind in the least. If Maggy had wanted in addition to bring a tame goat he would have welcomed it. All her eccentricities amused him. Her solicitude for her two pets showed her thoughtfulness and goodness of heart. So, when the day arrived, Mrs. Slightly traveled to Purton Towers in a well-ventilated hat box, while Onions, wildly excited but restrained by a brand-new leather leash, sat between Maggy and Alexandra in the back of the car.

It was a brilliant day, one of those sunny, windless days that belies the time of year. The air was crisp rather than cold, and the two girls, wrapped in their furs and a capacious rug, reveled in the swift rush of the open car infinitely more than if they had been driving in a closed one. Maggy was in prodigious spirits. Chalfont, driving with his man beside him, turned occasionally to watch her, regretting that he was unable to catch a word of her animated talk.

"Isn't life a funny thing, Onions dear," she was bubbling rather than saying. "Six months ago you were a gagaboo little horror eating your namesakes out of a dustbin, and here you are being driven by a real live lord. The beauty of it is you don't know it and wouldn't care if you did. That's one of the reasons why I love you, Onions. You don't mind me being an abandoned female. You don't even know that I am one. That's why King Edward was so fond of his Caesar. Caesar didn't love him because he was a king but because he was a man. He might have been a coal-heaver for all Caesar cared. You little wog-wogs don't know anything about titles or the marriage service, but you can love, honor and obey better than we can, till death makes us howl and bury you."

Onions, straining at his lead, leapt up and tried to snatch a mouthful of her motor-veil.

"Onions, if I were rich I would try to make a heaven on earth for all the doggies in the world. I'd look for all the hungry ones and all the ugly ones and the beaten ones and the ones whose mothers sat on them and made them funny shapes. You should all have lovely patent kennels full of the best quality straw--heaps of it to wiggle around in; and exciting food, bones and the horrible things from insides that you like so much, and sulphur when you weren't looking, to keep you well and make your coats shine. And you should all run about wherever you pleased, chasing bunny-rabbits and mice and the other sniffy things that make dogs so excited. And there should be a special place all wired round for the slow doggies, all full of rabbits so that they couldn't get away. It wouldn't be cruel, because after a time you'd make friends with the bunnies and play hide and seek with them. Oh, what a lovely world we could make it if we had it all to ourselves. Lexie, do look at Onion's face. He's _laughing_!"

Alexandra laughed too.

"How you do lose your head and your heart to anything you love, Maggy," she said.

Maggy gave her one of her odd looks.

"Isn't it a way women have?" she retorted.

XXXIV

The room, of regal dimensions, was paneled in linenfold, and hung with old tapestry. Giant specimens of William and Mary furniture did not crowd it; nor did the big canopied four-poster on its dais much curtail the floor-space. In the wide, open fireplace logs glowed warmly. A dozen candles shed a soft light on Alexandra as she sat in a tall carved armchair by the hearth, plaiting her hair. Maggy on the bed in her nightgown with her hands clasped round her knees was lost in the shadow of its brocaded curtains.

"Pinch me, Lexie, or I shall believe it's all a dream and wake up," she said. "Fancy, a king slept here once. I wonder what he'd have said if he'd been told that hundreds of years afterwards a chorus girl was coming into his bed--" A shy gurgle brought her to a stop as she realized the doubtful meaning she had given to the last part of the sentence. "Lexie, how quiet you are."

"I'm reveling in it too," said Alexandra with a contented sigh.

"Oh, you're a lady by birth. It's natural to you."

"Indeed it isn't. I've never been in such a lovely place in my life."

"Footmen with powdered legs!" mused Maggy absently.

Alexandra laughed softly.

"Hair, I mean. Same thing.... And the dinner served like machinery and yet so quietly. None of the waiters--servants--in a hurry, and everything so natural and perfect. I thought I should feel like walking on new-laid eggs, but I didn't at all. Oh, if you lived in a place like this all your life you couldn't help growing noble and behaving beautifully. I don't feel properly vulgar here."

"But you're not vulgar."

"Well, perhaps not properly.... Isn't Mrs. Pardiston a dear? She's 'the Honorable,' isn't she? I think 'the Honorable' sounds more splendid than 'Lady' or even 'Duchess.' 'Honorable!' It means so much. The others are tides, but 'the Honorable' is an--an--"

"Attribute?" supplied Alexandra.

"Yes, that's the word. Isn't it nice of him asking her--his own aunt--to meet us? Oh, Lord!"

"What's the matter?"

"I asked Lord Chalfont not to tell any one we were on the stage. Mrs. Pardiston can't know. She ought to. She's been so sweet to me. Perhaps she wouldn't have been if she'd known. I think I ought to tell her before I go to sleep."

"Why not wait till the morning?" suggested Alexandra.

"I'm sure to forget in the morning. I'm going to get up at seven to see the cows milked. You mustn't, Lexie, because you've got a cold. And then there'll be church, and after that the Christmas tree to do things to, and--I shan't _remember_ I'm on the stage to-morrow. Oh, are you going?"

"My dear, it's past twelve." Alexandra's bedroom was opposite Maggy's. "I wish we had been together," she said.

"So do I. But I suppose in the state of life unto which it has pleased God to call the aristocracy they never do sleep together. Good night, darling."

Left alone, Maggy remained as she was, hugging her knees and thinking. The soft, warm silence wrapped her round. Her excited mind was full of the eventful day: the long motor run ending with her first close acquaintance with a noble old edifice such as she had only previously seen in pictures and photographs. Her first view of it had made her feel as if she could have knelt down and worshiped it. It was all so grand and so very, very good. Her tiny flat, which had hitherto seemed such a palace in her eyes, receded to its proper unimposing proportions. She saw the insignificance of her little white "bedroom suite" beside the stately furniture that surrounded her. She thought of the dignity, the age and the atmosphere of peace into which, as on a magic carpet, she had been suddenly transported, and compared it with the fret and turmoil and passion of her own life. She had been timorous at first of Mrs. Pardiston with her air of high breeding, and then fallen completely under the spell of her charm. It had shown itself so gently maternal toward her and Alexandra, so unquestioning.

But Mrs. Pardiston probably assumed her to be a lady. It seemed absurd, in spite of her having striven hard to appear as to the manner born. Indeed, she had succeeded in behaving charmingly. Only her modesty prevented her being assured of it. Even supposing she had satisfied Lord Chalfont's aunt in that respect, she still felt she was imposing on the dear old lady by not having disclosed her want of social standing. With that doubt on her mind she got into bed, the enormous bed that enveloped her like a warm, embracing sea. It kept her awake. Not more than an hour since, Mrs. Pardiston bidding her good-night had said, "Come to me if you want anything, my dears. You know where my room is."

Recollection of those words sent her flying out of bed. She felt she must go and make confession. Out in the wide corridor she was directed by a stream of light that came from under her hostess's door. She knocked at it ever so gently, and was bidden to enter. She opened it and stood on the threshhold, hesitating.

Mrs. Pardiston was sitting up in bed, reading. Maggy's subsequent impression of her was always that of a white-haired Madonna crowned with folds of soft lace.

"May I come in? Am--am I disturbing you?" she asked timidly.

"No, my dear. I never get to sleep for hours. But what is it?"

Maggy closed the door. Barefooted, in her nightgown, with her hair ruffled, she looked and felt like a child caught in some reprehensible act.

"I didn't know whether you knew we--I--I'm a chorus-girl," she stammered.

Mrs. Pardiston shut her book. She had been reading the story of the birth of Jesus. That lonely vigil of Mary and her outcast Son, the friendlessness and loneliness of it, had its special appeal on this the dawn of its anniversary. Her heart was touched. For some unknown reason also it went out to the girl so wistfully standing by her bed.

"Are you, dear?" she said tenderly. "Wrap yourself in the eider-down and tell me all about it."

Tell her all about it! Maggy was quite unprepared for the calm and friendly overture.

"Would you mind if I didn't?" she faltered. "It would take so long. I dance and sing for my living, that's all. There's nothing interesting about it. But I thought you ought to know, else you might have--"

Mrs. Pardiston smiled reassuringly.

"I should never think ill of a person because they worked for their living. It was nice of you to want to trust me."

"I did. You've been so kind.... But I'm interrupting you. You were reading."

"You can read to me, if you will." Mrs. Pardiston took off her spectacles and handed Maggy the book, indicating the place. "Are you quite warm? But perhaps you would rather go to bed?"

"I'll read a little first, please."

Not till then did Maggy observe that the book she held was the Bible. A solemn look came into her face. Her voice was a little unsteady as she began to read.

"'Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

"'Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him....'"

Chalfont, passing the room on his way to bed, heard Maggy's voice, and paused to listen.

XXXV

To get up of a winter's morning to see his cows milked was not a usual diversion with Chalfont, but to please Maggy he turned out at seven and took her to the home farm to witness that process. She was absorbed by it. She had never before been nearer to a cow than the average hedge permits of; and to see them, as she did now, in the family circle, so to speak, was a delightful novelty to her. Her love of animals was very real. She went into raptures over Chalfont's velvety-nosed prize Jerseys.

In her hurry to get up she had neglected to use any of the creams and unguents which she deemed necessary for the adornment of her face. It had been too dark for Chalfont to notice this omission at first, but on their way back he became aware of it, and also of the flawlessness of her complexion. Without stopping to think, he said:

"What have you done to yourself?"

"You mean, what have I not done?" she laughed. "I've forgotten my face. Left it out."

He was on the point of apologizing for his blunder, but said instead: "I like you much better as you are."

"That's what Lexie's always saying. But it's habit. When a girl makes-up year in and year out she feels undressed without it. Savages have that feeling, I suppose," she added comically. "I haven't wished you a happy Christmas yet. I do hope you will be very happy--later on."

"Thank you. And I hope you will be happy always."

"I'm happy now, at any rate. I believe this is going to be the most heavenly day of my life. I feel it in my bones."

A few moments later she burst into Alexandra's bedroom.

"Oh, Lexie dear, happy Christmas! I've been saying it to the cows and the horses and the lodge-keeper's children ever since seven. Give me a hug. I haven't got your Christmas present with me, because it's an eider-down quilt. You'll find it on your bed when you get back. Don't let's think of getting back though. It's so perfect here. What time will church be? I suppose I mustn't take Onions to church? He chased the fowls all over the farmyard this morning. Lord Chalfont says I can leave him here if I like. It would be nice for Onions, but not for the fowls. There's a bell! It must be for breakfast. Come along; I'm famished."

Church followed on the heels of breakfast. Maggy had never been to a Christmas service before. She was tremendously impressed by it. The maternal instinct, always very strong in her, tugged at her heart strings. Once, as she knelt, Alexandra noticed that she was quietly crying. So did Chalfont.

Mrs. Pardiston and Alexandra stopped for Communion. Leaving the motor for them, the other two walked back. Maggy was very quiet. With the latent understanding that made Chalfont attune himself to her mood he too refrained from speech. Presently she burst out:

"Why does the world only appreciate people after they're dead? What is the good of birthdays when you're not alive? That poor little baby! If He came down from Heaven again they'd let Him be born in a manger just the same. Only children ought to go to church on Christmas day. They're good enough. We're not. Do you know, I wondered I wasn't struck dumb for being anywhere near to God. God was in church this morning. I felt Him. I'm not religious, but I believe in God now. Oh, I wish I was good, like Lexie. I wish I didn't know what love is. I wish I'd never been wicked!"

She was wrought-up. She had forgotten the necessity for reticence. Her confession had to come. The restraint of sex was forgotten. If she thought of Chalfont at all at that moment, it was as a brother rather than a man.

"Hush," he said. "You're not wicked."

"I am, I am," she reiterated. "_I_ ought to have had a baby.... People must have thought the usual things of Mary because of hers.... But she had Him."

"You poor little woman," he said unsteadily.

That he should express compassion where most men would have shown despisement filled her with almost dog-like gratitude.

"I _do_ like you," she said with sudden vehemence. "If I had been dear Mrs. Lambert I would have loved you."

"Thank you," he said very seriously.

Like a passing cloud, the strange emotional mood soon left her. Her volatile spirits rose again. By the time she had taken Onions for a scamper in the grounds she was quite her old self. Chalfont, watching her flitting here and there, thought only of her rapturous enjoyment of innocent pleasures, and succeeded for a little while in forgetting that such a person as Woolf with his sullying associations was in existence.

The day passed with dream-like swiftness for the two girls. They snatched at its fleeting pleasures according to their temperaments. To Alexandra it was a delightful break in a life which she was beginning to loathe, one for which she could not be too grateful. Its very evanescence caused her to enjoy it with temperate zest. Maggy's livelier feelings made her grasp at all it brought forth with both hands. To her it was a glimpse into fairyland, or at least a world in which she classed herself a complete outsider.

Chalfont had not forgotten her desire for a Christmas tree and the presence of children to enjoy it. All the youngsters on the estate had been bidden to the treat. There were small boys, rosy of cheek, in their best; small girls, eager-eyed, in the whitest of pinafores. Maggy, at Mrs. Pardiston's request, presided over the feast arranged for them. She it was who afterwards distributed the gifts from the loaded Christmas tree. Within five minutes the children were under her spell; in ten she seemed to know all their names and a great deal about each of them. When at last the tree was stripped of all but its candles she started games and joined in them. She romped. She was a child among children.

When they had all gone, Chalfont suggested that before dressing for dinner the two girls should inspect the picture-gallery, which they had not yet seen, and as soon as it was lighted up he led the way there. Maggy's interest at once centered in the many portraits that lined the walls. The landscapes and genre pictures that interspersed them she passed by. Individualities only concerned her, and to these, in the canvasses of dead and gone Chalfonts she gave a rapt attention, stopping at each that appealed to her and asking for its history. One portrait in particular, that of a very beautiful girl, she looked at for a long time.

"Who was she?" she inquired.

"My grandmother," replied Chalfont. "It was painted just after her marriage. She was only nineteen when she died, a year later."

"Oh, what a pity! Why?"

Chalfont passed to the next portrait.

"Her son," he said. "My father."

Maggy understood. She glanced back sadly at the youthful face of the mother.

Chalfonts in armor, in uniform, in silk and velvet and in lace, confronted her everywhere. She flitted from one to the other, admiring, impressed.

"How proud of them all you must be," she said finally. "Fancy having--ancestors!"

As she spoke she paused before the portrait of a woman, perceiving in it something different from the rest. The face was handsome, yet lacked a high-bred look.

"Another ancestress," said Chalfont. "An actress, a contemporary of Mrs. Siddons."

"How did she come here?" wondered Maggy, almost jealous for the honor of his house.

"She married the fourth Viscount."

"Married him!" She stared at the painted lady. "It was a mistake," she said, as though to herself, and in so odd a tone that the others laughed.

When Chalfont set the two girls down at the stage-door on Boxing night Maggy pressed a note into his hand. He read it at his club, where he went to dine before returning to the theater.

"'Thank you very much' sounds so beastly ordinary in words, so I must write it, because I want you to know that I am ever so grateful for the way you have treated me. It's proper for a darling saint like Lexie to be asked to stay at Purton Towers. But me--that's another thing. I shall get into hot water with Mr. Woolf for coming, and I don't suppose he'll allow it again if you ask me, or even let me see you. But don't ever think that I can forget your kindness. Although you know what I am you have had me down to your beautiful home, with your sweet honorable aunt just as if I wasn't a common girl, which I am. The only thing I can say is that perhaps if I had been properly brought up and had a name to be proud of I shouldn't have dragged it in the mud like I have my own silly name which can't belong to me because it's the classy kind actresses make up. Don't laugh. I'm not often serious, but I do say God bless you and I mean it.

"MAGGY."

The overture was coming to an end when Chalfont took his seat in the stalls. As the curtain swished up his eyes went to Maggy, scantily clad in diaphanous chiffon. He was thinking of the golden heart of the girl, not at all of her compulsorily over-exposed beauty.

But Maggy was blushing beneath her grease paint. A sudden access of modesty had come over her. It was as baffling to herself as was the remark she flung to the girl dancing beside her--one, two, three and a kick.

"What wouldn't I give for a blanket!"

XXXVI

One evening, a few days after Christmas, De Freyne waylaid Alexandra as she was coming from her dressing-room.