Ashley broke off in a mixture of remorse and embarrassment. His description could not be very grateful to its hearer; it must have come very near to betraying its utterer. Alice did not pretend that it left her quite in the dark; she laughed a little and said jokingly:
"One would think you were in love with her. I suppose it's that artistic temperament again. Well, this afternoon I'll look and see whether she's really all you say. The male judgment needs correction."
As their talk went on he perceived in her a brightening of spirits, a partial revival of serenity, a sort of relief; they came as a surprise to him. The lightness with which she now spoke of Ora appeared, to a large degree at least, genuine. He did not understand that she attributed to him, in more sincerity than her manner had suggested, the temper which had formed the subject of their half-serious half-jesting talk. Her impression of him did not make him less attractive to her; he was not all of the temper she blamed and feared; he had, she persuaded herself, just enough of it to save him from the purely ribbon-selling nature and (here came the point to which she fondly conducted herself) to give her both hope and patience in regard to her own relations with him. She could not help picturing herself as the fixed point to which he would, after his veerings, return in the end; meanwhile his share of the temperament excused the veerings. Lady Kilnorton had forced the game with entire apparent success, but Alice's quick eyes questioned the real completeness of that victory. She would play a waiting game. There was no question of an orthodox marriage with the young lady from over the way or round the corner, an arrangement which would have been odious in its commonplace humiliation and heart-breaking in its orderly finality. But Ora Pinsent was not a finality, any more than she was the embodiment of an orderly arrangement. That fortunate impossibility which attached to her, by virtue of Jack Fenning's existence, forbade despair, just as her fascination and her irresistibility seemed to prevent humiliation and lessen jealousy. The thing was a transient craze, such as men fell into; it would pass. If she joined her life to Ashley Mead's she was prepared (so she assured herself) for such brief wanderings of allegiance, now and then; as time went on, they would grow fewer and fewer, until at last she conquered altogether the tendency towards them. "And she must be ten years older than I am," her reflections ended; that the real interval was but seven did not destroy the importance of the point.
Having offered Ashley a lift to Piccadilly, she went off to get ready, and presently Bowdon, who had called to pick up Irene, strolled into the garden for a cigarette.
"Hullo, what are you doing here? You ought to be making your living," he cried good-humouredly.
"I've been throwing it away instead," said Ashley. "Should you like to be a partner in Muddock and Mead?"
"A sleeping one," said Bowdon with a meditative pull at his moustache.
Ashley explained that he would have been expected to take an active part. Bowdon evidently thought that he ought to have been glad to take any part, and rebuked him for his refusal.
"Take the offer and marry the girl," he counselled. "She'd have you all right, and she seems a very good sort."
"I don't feel like settling down all of a sudden," said Ashley with a smile.
They walked side by side for a few paces; then Bowdon remarked,
"Depend upon it, it's a good thing to do, though."
"It's a question of the best date," said Ashley, much amused at his companion. "Now at your age, Lord Bowdon – "
"Confound you, Ashley, I'm not a hundred! I say it's a good thing to do. And, by Jove, when it means a lump of money too!"
A pause followed; they walked and smoked in silence.
"Good creatures, women," remarked Bowdon.
Ashley did not find the remark abrupt; he traced its birth. Alice had left much the same impression behind her in his mind.
"Awfully," he answered; there was in his voice also a note of remorse, of the feeling that comes when we cannot respond to a kindness so liberally as it deserves.
"Of course they aren't all alike, though," pursued Bowdon, as though he were reasoning out an intricate subject and coming on unexpected conclusions. "In fact they differ curiously, wonderfully."
His thoughts had passed, or were passing, from Irene Kilnorton to Ora Pinsent; obedient to this guidance Ashley's followed in a parallel track from Alice Muddock to Ora Pinsent.
"They're charming in different ways," said he with a slight laugh. Bowdon shewed no signs of mirth; he was frowning a little and smoked rather fast.
"And men are often great asses," he observed a few moments later. Again Ashley had kept pace, but his face was more doubtful than his companion's and there was hesitation in his voice as he replied,
"Yes, I suppose they are."
This subterranean conversation, shewing above ground only faint indications of what it really meant to each of the talkers, had carried them to the end of the garden. Turning round at the fence, they saw Irene and Alice walking towards them, side by side. Both ladies were well dressed, Irene rather brilliantly, Alice with quiet, subdued good taste; both seemed attractive, Irene for her bright vivacity and merry kindness, Alice for her strength of regard and a fine steady friendliness. A man who was fortunate enough to gain either of them would win a wife of whom he might justly be proud when he talked with the enemy in the gate, and moreover would enjoy an unusually good prospect of being happy in his own house. The man who had won one, and the man who could, if he would, win the other, approached them in a slow leisurely stroll.
"Yes, great asses," repeated Bowdon in a reflective tone.
"I didn't say we weren't," protested Ashley Mead with an irritated laugh.
They would have found a most heartfelt endorsement of the view which they reluctantly adopted, had Sir James Muddock known how small a share of Ashley's visit had been honestly devoted to a consideration of the advantages of a partnership in Muddock and Mead, and how much larger a part had been given to a subject concerning which Sir James could have only one opinion.
CHAPTER VII
UNDER THE NOSEGAY
When Alice Muddock reached Ora's little house in Chelsea and was shewn into the drawing-room, she found herself enjoying an introduction to Mr. Sidney Hazlewood and forced to shake hands with Babba Flint. Hazlewood struck her favourably; there was a repressed resolution about him, a suggestion of being able to get most of what he might happen to want; no doubt, though, his desires would be limited and mainly professional. Babba was, as usual, quite inexplicable to her and almost intolerable. The pair had, it seemed, come on business, and, after an apology, Ora went on talking business to them for fully a quarter of an hour. She was in a businesslike, even a commercial money-grubbing mood; so were the men; amid a number of technical terms which fell on Alice's ignorant ears the question of what they would make was always coming uppermost. There was indeed a touch of insincerity in Ora's graspingness; it did not seem exactly affectation, but rather like a part for which she was cast on this occasion and into which she threw herself with artistic zeal. She had to play up to her companions. There was in her neither the quiet absorption in the pecuniary aspect which marked Mr. Hazlewood, nor the tremulous eagerness with which Babba counted imaginary thousands, the fruit of presupposed successes. Hazlewood, a clean-shaven hard-lined man of close on fifty, and Babba with his long moustache, his smooth cheeks, his dandiness, and his youth, treated Ora exactly in the same way – first as a possible partner, then as a possible property. They told her what she would make if she became a partner and how much they could afford to pay her as a property if she would hire herself out to them. Ora had her alternative capacities clearly grasped and weighed their relative advantages with a knowing hand. Alice thought it a strange scene by which to make her first more intimate study of the irresistible impossible Miss Pinsent, the Miss Pinsent of uncontrollable emotions and unknowable whims. What images the world made of people! Yet somehow, in the end, had not the world a way of being just right enough to save its credit?
At last the conference appeared to be about to break up. Alice was almost sorry; she could have gone on learning from it.
"Only remember," said Mr. Hazlewood, "that if we do make a deal, why, it is a deal!"
Ora began to laugh; an agreement was an agreement, she remembered, and a deal, by parity of reasoning, a deal. Hazlewood's wrinkle clamoured for seriousness; hard money was at stake, and over that surely even genius could look grave.
"Oh, she won't want to cry off this," said Babba with a sagacious nod.
Alice had never known how Babba lived (any more than she knew why). It appeared now that he supported himself by speculations of this description; she fancied that he asserted himself so much because the other two seemed to consider him, in the end, rather superfluous; more than once he had to remind them that he was indispensable; they yielded the point good-naturedly. She was interrupted in her thoughts by Hazlewood, who made a suave remark to her and held out his hand with a low bow. Ora was chaffing Babba about a very large flower in his buttonhole.
"Is Miss Pinsent a good woman of business?" Alice asked in an impulse of curiosity.
Hazlewood glanced at Ora; she was entirely occupied with Babba.
"Miss Pinsent," said he, with his overworked but still expressive smile, "is just exactly what you happen to find her. But if you call often enough, there'll come a time when you'll find her with a good head on her shoulders."
Alice felt vaguely sorry for Mr. Hazlewood; it must be wearing to deal with such unstable quantities. She could imagine herself exchanging sympathy with him on the vagaries of the artistic temperament; would she grow a wrinkle, of brow or of heart, over Ashley Mead? Or had she grown one?
"Well, you've had a lot of experience of her, haven't you?" she asked, laughing, and wondering what he thought of Ora. His answer expressed no great affection.
"Good Lord, yes," he sighed, furrowing his brow again.
Ora darted up to him, put an arm through his, and clasped her hands over his sleeve.
"Abusing me?" she said, turning her face round to his. For a moment Alice thought that she was going to kiss him and hoped vaguely she would not; but she felt that she did not know the etiquette; it might be usual.
"Telling the truth," said Mr. Hazlewood with stout courage; then with pronounced gallantry he raised his arm with Ora's hands on it and kissed one of the hands; his manner now was quite different from his business manner of a few moments ago; his eyes were different too, hardly affectionate, but very indulgent.
"He likes me really, you know, though I worry him dreadfully," said Ora to Alice.
Babba came up; he had been arranging the big flower before a mirror.
"Seen Lady Kilnorton lately? She's brought it off with Bowdon, I hear," he said to Alice.
"She's engaged to Lord Bowdon," said Alice stiffly.
"Deuced lucky woman," observed Babba, blind to the rebuke which lay in Alice's formality of phrase.
"Take him away," Ora commanded Mr. Hazlewood. "We've done with him and we don't want him any more. We aren't sure we like him."
"Oh, come now, I ain't a bad chap, Miss Pinsent," pleaded Babba piteously.
"We're not at all sure we like him," said Ora inexorably. "Take him away at once, please, Mr. Hazlewood." And Hazlewood led him out, protesting bitterly.
For a moment or two Ora moved about, touching the furniture into the places in which she wanted it, and fingering the flowers in the vases. Then she came quickly to Alice, sat down by her side, and cried expansively,
"It's really charming of you to come. And you're like – you're like something – Oh, I don't know! I mean you're a lovely change from those men and their business and their money."
"I like Mr. Hazlewood."
"Oh, so do I. But my life's so much Mr. Hazlewood. Why did you come?"
"You asked me," said Alice.
"Yes, I know, but I hardly thought you'd come." She darted back to the previous conversation. "I'm going to make a lot of money, though, and then I'm going to have a long holiday, and a villa somewhere in Italy."
"Oh, they won't let you rest long."
"It won't be very long really, because I shall spend all the money," Ora explained with a smile. "Let's have some tea."
She rang, and tea was brought by a very respectable middle-aged woman. Ora addressed her maid as Janet and gave her a series of orders; Janet listened to them with a non-committal air, as though she would consider whether they were reasonable or not, and act according to her conclusion. Alice noticed that she called her mistress "Ma'am;" the reference to Mr. Fenning was very indirect, but it was the first that Alice had ever heard made in Ora's presence. It seemed to her also that Janet laid some slight emphasis on the designation, as though it served, or might be made to serve, some purpose besides that of indicating the proper respect of a servant. She found herself wondering whether Janet dated from the time when Mr. Fenning was still a present fact and formed a member of the united Fenning household (which, by the way, was an odd entity to contemplate). If that were the case, a conversation with Janet might be very interesting; knowledge might be gained about the bulwark; Alice had begun to look on Mr. Fenning as a bulwark – and to tell herself that she did no such thing.
A large number of photographs stood on the mantel-piece and about the room, most of them signed by their originals. Many were of men; one might be of Mr. Fenning. A silver frame stood on a little table just by the sofa. Alice's intuitive perception told her that here was Ora's favourite place; her traditions caused her to conclude that the frame (its back was towards her) held Mr. Fenning's portrait. She was not undiplomatic, only less diplomatic than many other women; she took a tour of inspection, saying how pretty the room was and declaring that she must look closer at the photograph of an eminent tragedian on the opposite wall. Her return movement shewed her the face of the portrait which she had guessed to be Mr. Fenning's; it was that of her friend Ashley Mead.
"Yes," said Ora, "he sent me that yesterday. I was so glad to have it."
"You gave him a return?" asked Alice with a careless laugh, the laugh appropriate to the moment.
"He chose one and I wrote on it. Sugar, Miss Muddock?"
Alice took sugar.
"You've known him ever so long, haven't you?" asked Ora, handing the cup.
"Ages, ever since we were children. He's very nice and very clever."
"I've only known him quite a little while." Ora paused and laughed. "Some people would say that's why his picture's in the place of honour."
"You like change?" asked Alice. Ashley liked change also. But Ora made her old defence.
"People change, so of course I change to them." The explanation did not quite satisfy herself. "Oh, I don't know," she said impatiently. "Anyhow I haven't left off liking Ashley yet. I may, you know."
Alice, conscious that she herself in her hostess' position would have said "Mr. Mead," tried to make the obvious allowances; it was just like that clasping of the hands round Hazlewood's arm, just like the air of expecting to be kissed. Fully aware of insurgent prejudices, she beat them down with a despotic judgment; she would not follow in the wake of her stepmother nor adopt the formulas of Minna Soames. Curiously enough Ora was in somewhat the same or a parallel state of mind, although she did not realise it so clearly. She too was struggling to understand and to appreciate. She was sure she would be friends with Miss Muddock, if she could get within her guard; but why did people have guards, or why not drop them when other people shewed themselves friendly? You might have to keep the Babba Flints at their distance, no doubt, but even that was better done by ridicule than by stiffness.
"We still see a good deal of him," said Alice, "although he has an immense lot of engagements. He generally comes to lunch on Sunday."
Ora reflected that he had not followed his usual practice on one Sunday. Alice went on to give a brief description of Ashley's general relation to the Muddock family, and referred to her father's wish that he should enter the business.
"He came to talk to me about it to-day," she said, "but it wouldn't suit him in the least, and I told him so."
"Oh, no, it wouldn't," cried Ora. "I'm so glad you told him right."
Their eyes met in a sudden glance. Did they both know so much of Ashley Mead, of his tastes, his temper, and what would suit him? An embarrassment arrested their talk. Alice was conscious that her hostess' eyes rested on her with an inquisitive glance; it had just occurred to Ora that in meeting this girl she had encountered a part of the life of Ashley Mead hitherto unknown to her. "What part? How much?" her eyes seemed to ask. She was not jealous of Alice Muddock, but she was inclined to be jealous of all that life of Ashley's of which she knew nothing, which her visitor had shared. With a sudden longing she yearned for the inn parlour where he had no other life than a life with her; the sudden force of the feeling took her unawares and set her heart beating.
She came again to Alice and sat down by her; silence had somehow become significant and impossible.
"I like your frock," she said, gently fingering the stuff. "At least I like it for you. I shouldn't like it for me."
The relativity of frocks, being, like that of morals, an extensive and curious subject, detained them for a few moments and left them with a rather better opinion of one another. Incidentally it revealed a common scorn of Minna Soames, who dressed as though she were stately when she was only pretty; this also knit them together. But they progressed nearer to liking than to understanding one another. Small points of agreement, such as the unsuitability of the business to Ashley and the inappropriateness of her gowns to Minna Soames, made intercourse pleasant but could not bridge the gulf between them; they were no more than hands stretched out from distant banks.
Alice began to talk of Irene Kilnorton and Bowdon. While attributing to them all proper happiness and the finality of attachment incidental to their present position, she told Ora, with a laugh, that they had all seen how much Bowdon had been struck with her.
"I think he did like me," said Ora with a ruminative smile. "He's safe now, isn't he?" she added a moment later. The thought had been Alice's own, but it needed an effort for her to look at it from Ora's point of view. To be a danger and to know yourself to be a danger, to be aware of your perilousness in a matter-of-fact way, without either exultation or remorse, was a thing quite outside Alice's experience. On the whole to expect men to fall in love with you and to be justified in this anticipation by events would create a life so alien from hers that she could not realise its incidents or the state of mind it would create.
"I like Lord Bowdon," said Ora. "But – " she paused and went on, laughing, "He's rather too sensible for me. He'll just suit Irene Kilnorton. But really I must write and tell him to come and see me. I haven't seen him since the engagement."
"You'd much better not," was on the tip of Alice's tongue, but she suspected that the impulse to say it was born of her still struggling prejudices. "Ask them together," she suggested instead.
"Oh, no," said Ora pathetically. "He'd hate it."
Alice did not see exactly why he should hate it. Engaged people always went about together; surely always?
"Were you ever engaged?" Ora went on.
"Never," said Alice with a laugh.
"I've been – well, of course I have – and I hated it."
With curiosity and pleasure Alice found herself on the threshold of the subject of Mr. Fenning. But Ora turned aside without entering the hidden precincts.
"And I'm sure I should hate it worse now. You wouldn't like it, would you?"
"I should like it very much, if I cared for the man."
"Well," Ora conceded, "he might make it endurable, if he treated it properly. Most men look so solemn over it. As soon as they've got you, they set to work to make you think what a tremendous thing you've done. As if that was the way to enjoy yourself!" She paused, seemed to think, smiled out of the window, and then, turning to Alice, said with an innocence evidently genuine, "Ashley Mead would make it rather pleasant, I think."
The trial was sudden; Alice had no time to put on her armour; she felt that her face flushed. Again their eyes met, as they had when it was agreed that the business would not suit Ashley. The glance was longer this time, and after Alice turned away Ora went on looking at her for several moments. That was it, then; Irene Kilnorton had not spoken idly or in ignorant gossip. What she had said fell short of truth, for she had spoken of an alliance only, not of love. Now Ora knew why the girl talked so much of Ashley; now she knew also why the girl shewed such interest in herself. Yes, the rich Miss Muddock would be Ashley's wife if she were wooed; besides being rich she was pleasant and clever, and knew how to dress herself. (This last moral quality ranked high in Ora's list.) Such an arrangement would be in all ways very beneficial to Ashley. She wondered whether Ashley knew how entirely the game was in his own hands. She felt a sudden and sore pity for Alice, who had been so cordial and so pleasant and whose secret she had heedlessly surprised. The cordiality seemed very generous; there was in it a challenge to counter-generosity. In an instant the heroic idea of giving him up to Alice flashed through her brain. This fine conception was hardly born before she found herself asking wrathfully whether he would consent to leave her.
Alice was herself again; she said that she thought Mr. Mead might make an engagement very pleasant, but that such a relation to him would perhaps not be very exciting to her, since she had known him all her life. This suppression of emotion was not to Ora's taste; it burked a scene to which her instinct had begun to look forward. But as generosity would be at this point premature (even if it should ever become tolerable) she was forced to acquiesce. A little later Alice took her leave with increased friendliness and a pressing invitation to Ora to come and see her at Kensington Palace Gardens when there was no party and they could have another quiet talk together.
Surrender – or the inn parlour? Generosity or joy? As an incidental accompaniment, correctness or incorrectness of conduct? These alternatives presented themselves to Ora when she was left alone. The rôle of renunciation had not only obvious recommendations but also secret attractions. How well she could play it! She did not exactly tell herself that she could play it well – the temperament has its decent reticences – but she pictured herself playing it well and wished for an opportunity to play it. She would have played it beautifully for Irene Kilnorton's benefit, had that lady asked her assistance instead of taking the matter into her own resolute hands. She would have sent Bowdon away with an exhortation to see his own good and to forget her, with a fully adequate, nay, a more than ample, confession of the pain the step was causing her, but yet with a determination which made the parting final and Irene's happiness secure. All this vaguely rehearsed itself in her brain as she lay on the sofa beside Ashley Mead's portrait in its silver frame. And her subsequent relations both with Irene and with Bowdon would have been touched with an underlying tenderness and sweetened by the common recollection of her conduct; even when he had become quite happy with Irene, even when he had learnt to thank herself, he would not quite forget what might have been.
Having arrived at this point, Ora burst into a laugh at her own folly. All that went very well, so very smoothly and effectively, grouped itself so admirably, and made such a pretty picture. But she took up the photograph in the silver frame and looked at it. It was not Bowdon's likeness but Ashley Mead's; the question, the real question, was not whether she should give up Bowdon; fate was not complaisant enough to present her with a part at once so telling and so easy. It was not Bowdon with whom she had spent a day in the country, not Bowdon who had been with her in the inn parlour, not Bowdon who, Alice Muddock thought, might make an engagement very pleasant. The grace of self-knowledge came to her and told her the plain truth about her pretty picture.
"What a humbug I am!" she cried, as she set down the photograph.
For the actual opportunity was very different from the imagined, as rich in effect perhaps, but by no means so attractive. She still liked her part, but the rest of the cast was not to her taste; she could still think of the final interview with a melancholy pleasure, but, with this distribution of characters, how dull and sad and empty and intolerable life would be when the final interview was done! The subsequent relations lost all their subdued charm; underlying tenderness and common recollections became flat and unprofitable.
"An awful humbug!" sighed Ora with a plaintive smile.
Why were good things so difficult? Because this thing would be very good – for him, for poor Alice, for herself. A reaction from the joy of Sunday came over her, bringing a sense of fear, almost of guilt. She recollected with a flash of memory what she had said to Jack Fenning when they parted in hot anger. "You needn't be afraid to leave me alone," she had cried defiantly, and up to now she had justified the boast. She had been weary and lonely, she had been courted and tempted, but she had held fast to what she had said. Her anger and her determination that Jack should not be in a position to triumph over her had helped to keep her steps straight. Now these motives seemed less strong, now the loneliness was greater. If she sent Ashley away the loneliness would be terrible; but this meant that the danger in not sending him away was terrible too, both for him and for her. As she sank deeper and deeper in depression she told herself that she was born to unhappiness, but that she might at least try not to make other people as unhappy as she herself was doomed to be.
While she still lay on the sofa, in turns pitying, reproaching, and exhorting herself, Janet came in.
"A letter, ma'am," said Janet. "Your dinner will be ready in ten minutes, ma'am."
"Thanks, Janet," said Ora, and took the letter. The handwriting was not known to her; the stamp and postmark were American; Bridgeport, Conn., the legend ran. "I don't know anybody in Bridgeport, or in Conn. – Conn.? – Oh, yes, Connecticut," said Ora.
The silver frame stood crooked on the table. Ora set it straight, looked at the face in it, smiled at some thought, sighed at the same or some other thought, and lazily opened the letter from Bridgeport, Conn.; she supposed it was a communication of a business kind, or perhaps a request for a photograph or autograph.
"My dear Ora, I have had an accident to my hand, so get a friend to write this for me. I am here in a merchant's office, but have had a bit of luck on Wall Street and am in funds to a modest extent. So I am going to take a holiday. I shall not come to England unless you give me leave; but I should like to come and see you again and pay you a visit. How long I stayed would depend on circumstances and on what we decided after we had met. A letter will find me here for the next month. I hope you will send one inviting me to come. I would write more if I could write myself; as it is I will only add that I am very anxious to see you and am sure I can set right any mistakes that there have been in the past. Write as soon as you can. Yours affectionately, Jack."
She turned back to the envelope: – "Miss Ora Pinsent." The friend who wrote Jack's letter probably did not know that he was writing to Jack's wife. Janet knew Jack's writing, but not the writing of Jack's friend. In secrecy and privacy Jack's letter had come. She laid it down beside the portrait in the silver frame, and lay back again quietly with wide-opened eyes. The clock ticked away ten minutes; dinner was ready; she lay still.
Had people a right to rise from the dead like this? Were they justified, having gone out of life, in coming back into it under cover of a friend's handwriting and a postage stamp? They had parted for ever, Jack and she, most irrevocably, most eagerly, most angrily. A few lines on a sheet of note paper could not change all that. He had been dead and gone; at least he had existed only as a memory and as – she hardly liked to say an encumbrance – as a check, as a limiting fact, as a difficulty which of necessity barred her from ordering her doings just as she might have liked to order them. Now he proposed suddenly to become a fact, a presence, a part of her again, and stole a hearing for this proposal in the insidious disguise of a friend's handwriting. How he chose his time too! In wild fancy she imputed to him a knowledge of the curious appositeness of his letter's arrival. It came just when she was unhappy, torn with doubts, feeling low, yes, and feeling guilty; just after the revelation of Alice Muddock's feelings, just after the day in the country, just while she was saying that, for weal or woe, she could not send Ashley Mead away. At such a moment she would not have opened the letter had she known it for his; but he had had an accident to his hand and the unknown writing had gained him access.
Janet came in again.
"Your dinner is ready, ma'am," she said, and went on, "These have come for you, ma'am," laying a nosegay of roses on the little table beside the portrait in the silver frame, and the letter from Bridgeport, Conn.