Nothing Venture (9 page)

F.F. was speaking to him.

“Pity you never found out who she was.”

The queer look deepened.

“Is it a pity? I—don't—know,” he said slowly.

Nan heard her own voice with surprise. She had not meant to speak, but she heard herself say,

“You would rather not know her, really?”

As before, something passed between them—a curious flash of understanding. Then he said with a short laugh,

“Well, it would be rather difficult to live up to that sort of beginning—wouldn't it?”

She nodded slowly and gravely.

“Now, that's just your crazy British fear of giving away the fact that you're chock full of
r
omance and ideals. You're afraid of meeting that plucky kid, not because you wouldn't know what to say to her or how to say it, but because you'd know very well, and you'd be real scared of your romantic nature getting out of hand—slipping the collar, so to speak—and rushing into words which you'd never be able to think of again without blushing scarlet.” He turned to Nan, his ginger head on one side, his eyes snapping. “Englishmen are very romantic—but it's a secret vice—they consider it indelicate. And that's why Jervis wouldn't meet that girl for the world and a little bit over—she might make him realize what romantic feelings he's got about her, and then of course he'd never be able to look her in the face again.”

XII

It was perhaps a minute later that Mr Fazackerley, looking round to catch the waiter's eye, saw something which distracted his attention. He gazed with frank interest at a table set against the wall on the far side of the room. Two people had just risen from it, a man and a woman. Mr Fazackerley gave his wholehearted attention to the woman.

“Now that's what I call a looker!” he said.

The woman stood against the golden wall. She wore a dull gold dress that matched her hair. It clung as closely as a dress can cling to a singularly perfect figure. It was so plain and so heavy as to give her the appearance of a statue—a golden statue set against a golden wall. Then, as she moved, the statue came alive. The glowing white of her neck and arms, the brilliance of her eyes, took the light and enchanted it.

Mr Fazackerley's admiration rose to enthusiasm.

“Great Tammany! That's a looker!” he repeated. “Do you see her—over there against the wall?”

Jervis Weare had seen her twenty minutes ago. It was like Rosamund to be facing the music—he could still admire that in her. She was with Robert Leonard. Was she facing the music? Or had she perhaps counted on meeting nobody who would know her? A bit of folly, that; for nowadays even August is not to be counted upon, since anyone may turn up from anywhere at any moment.

He smiled slightly as he glanced about the room. Already, as they came in, he had returned an interested bow from Mrs Manning Temple. The three people with her were strangers, and it had instantly occurred to him that it would not be Mrs Manning Temple's fault if they remained strangers to his affairs. From where he was sitting he could without turning his head see at least half a dozen people whom he knew—old James Mulroy, a very competent and industrious gossip; Lady Tetterley, his nearest neighbour and a far-away cousin on his mother's side; the Carters—Nonie Carter pop-eyed with interest; and Mrs Melliter, with Enid who was to have been one of Rosamund's bridesmaids.

With a faintly sardonic gleam in his eye he turned from Enid to watch Rosamund. She spoke smilingly over her shoulder to Leonard and moved clear of the table. He looked away from her to Nan. She was sitting back in her chair, and she too was watching Rosamund Carew. Jervis looked at her, and, for the first time, really saw her. It was as if Rosamund had flung him a challenge, and he must look to his weapons. From the first, Nan had been a weapon against Rosamund. Now, in this public place, there came the first encounter.

He looked to see how his weapon would serve him, and was faintly startled. She was sitting back in her chair. A pretty turn of the neck and a graceful pose—that was what he saw first. And, directly upon that, he received the strongest impression of youth. Rosamund and he were nearly of an age, Rosamund a few months the elder. Nan, sitting there, with her eyes wide, her lips a little apart, and a flush on her cheeks, had the air of a child. Rosamund was a beautiful woman. Nan had freshness and grace, a direct gaze, a young round chin, and on occasion a dimple. Her hands lay in her lap. The direct gaze was fixed with interest and admiration on Rosamund, but the interest and admiration were alike tinged with something else. Jervis did not know what the something was. It drew her brows together and put a faintly distressed curve upon her mouth.

He looked where she was looking, and saw Rosamund and Robert Leonard coming towards them. Something inside him laughed—a hard, angry laugh. The challenge was to be pressed. This was throwing down the glove with a vengeance. And how damnably clever! If he could be pricked into rudeness, Rosamund would most undoubtedly score. He had not troubled himself as to what people were saying; but if he were rude to Rosamund in public, it would undoubtedly play into her hand—and if anyone in the world knew how quick and sudden a temper he had, it was Rosamund. Even with his brain laying down the law to it, he could feel the hot violent leap of the rage which he could only just control.

Rosamund Carew came on with Robert Leonard at her shoulder. Nan's lips parted wistfully, her heart sank. She was so very beautiful. Her hair was back in a smooth gold wave from her brow to the nape of her neck, where it broke into tiny curls that were caught in a dull gold slide. She moved as if she knew how beautiful she was; her eyes held the certainty of it.

She stopped at the empty side of the table, touched it with a hand that wore one big sapphire, and sent a faintly smiling look across it.

“Well, Jervis?” she said.

Jervis smiled too, a sudden brilliant smile which changed his face. It frightened Nan a good deal more than any frown of his had ever done. As he smiled, he rose.

Ferdinand Fazackerley was already on his feet.

Nan looked up at all these standing people. Her wide eyes and tilted chin gave her for an instant a look of piteous inquiry. Then she got up too.

“I haven't congratulated you,” said Rosamund.

“No,” said Jervis pleasantly. Then, “I hope you're going to.”

“When you have introduced me to your wife.” She turned her eyes on Nan. They were just like the sapphire of her ring—as darkly blue, as cold beneath the brilliance and the colour. She smiled with her lips, but the smile rose no higher.

Nan heard Jervis say her name. It was the first time since he had said, “I, Jervis, take thee, Nan.” He said,

“Nan, let me introduce my cousin, Rosamund Carew.” She was aware of his smile. “You have heard of her.”

“And I have never heard of you,” said Rosamund very sweetly. “That doesn't seem fair—does it?”

Jervis watched them with interest. To Rosamund's perfect social technique Nan had only youth and inexperience to offer; yet, to his surprise, she suffered less than he could have supposed possible from the contact. She had the air of a well-bred child a little unsure of what it must do next. But the breeding was there; it kept her head up and her eyes steady and clear. Jervis wondered how old Page's typist came by it.

He thrust F.F. into the breach.

“You've heard enough of Ferdinand Fazackerley.”

“Are you F.F.?” said Rosamund. Her voice, like all her movements, had a slow grace. It was rather a deep voice.

“I am,” said Ferdinand—“and I can't begin to say how pleased I am to meet you. I don't know why it's never happened before. As sure as ever I've been in this country, you've been somewhere else.”

Rosamund smiled upon him and introduced Robert Leonard—to him first, and then to Nan.

Mr Fazackerley shook hands with enthusiasm. Nan acknowledged the privilege of Mr Leonard's acquaintance with the slightest, gravest inclination of the head. No one could have told how terribly her heart was beating. To be so close to the man who had tried to kill Jervis, not once but twice! With all her heart she believed that he had struck down Jervis ten years ago and left him to drown on Croyston rocks. With all her heart she believed that he had offered five hundred pounds to the driver who had run Jervis down an hour ago. It was horrible to be so near him. She forced herself to look him in the face. She had seen him twice before, but it was by his walk, the carriage of his powerful high-shouldered body, the forward set of the rather large head, that she had recognized him. She saw him face to face for the first time. He had a jutting brow with sparse fair eyebrows; the eyes were deeply and rather closely set, the nose insignificant, the chin jutting again and oddly cleft; a small colourless mustache clipped away from the corners of the mouth showed thin, pale lips; his hair was smooth and mouse-coloured.

Nan felt a stab of fear. The man frightened her. He looked at her over Rosamund's shoulder, and she breathed more freely when he looked away.

Rosamund turned from F.F. and spoke.

“Are you up for long? How can you tear yourself from King's Weare in this weather?”

“I've been seeing my sister married,” said Nan. “She sailed for Australia today.”

“Then you'll be going down tomorrow, I suppose.”

Jervis said, “Yes, tomorrow.” He added, quite lightly and smoothly, “So I'm afraid we shan't meet again.”

Rosamund took her hand from the table. The sapphire in her ring caught the light. It was darkly blue. Her eyes resembled it as she said,

“We're dancing. Shall we see you—or are you running away?”

“No, we're not running away,” said Jervis. That brilliant smile came and went.

Nan had a feeling that he would smile like that if he were fighting for his life. She thought he was fighting for something now. There had been the visible flash of meeting blades when his eyes met Rosamund's.

Rosamund Carew smiled and passed on down the room, spoke for a moment to Lady Tetterley, smiled at Nonie Carter, touched Enid Melliter on the shoulder, and after a word or two passed on and out of sight behind a golden pillar.

“
Well!
” said Mr Fazackerley. He put a wealth of expression into the word; his eyes darted questions from which his tongue refrained. Like King David, he held his tongue, but it was pain and grief to him.

Jervis looked at him rather maliciously.

“Whilst we eat our ices, you shall tell us what you've been doing for the last six months, and then—” He turned on Nan. “Do you like dancing? Would you care to dance?”

They were seated again. A faint sparkle came into Nan's grey eyes. Her mouth did not smile, but a dimple appeared quite close to it, quivered a moment, and was gone.

“I don't think we'll run away,” he said. “I think we'll dance. If F.F. makes a clean breast of all his villainies, he shall dance with Rosamund—and I'm sure you'd love a turn with Leonard.”

Her face went blank; her colour was gone.

She said, “Oh no—I'd rather not.” Then, with a pathetic earnestness, “Oh, please don't make me.”

“Then you'll have to put up with me—and I'm nothing like the performer that he is.”

XIII

The Luxe has the best dancing-floor in London. Ferdinand found Miss Carew graciously willing to accord him a dance. If Robert Leonard resented having to give way to him, he showed no sign of it, but stood in the mirror-lined archway and watched the curiously matched couple go by.

F.F. was at least an accomplished dancer. As he danced, he talked with considerable verve, whilst Rosamund smiled and listened.

A moment later Jervis and Nan went by. If Ferdinand was an accomplished dancer, the new Mrs Jervis Weare was an exquisite one. Jervis experienced an elusive feeling of being for once at the top of a form to which he had never previously aspired. He looked down at Nan's brown head. He could just see one of her ears. It was little and delicately shaped; the lobe showed pink between short waves of hair.

“I suppose you know how beautifully you dance. I wouldn't have dared ask you if I had known.”

She looked up for a moment—one of those direct looks of hers.

“I was a dancing partner at Solano's for six months before I went to Mr Page,” she said.

“Did you like it?”

She could hear the frown in his voice.

“No.” It was a very sober monosyllable to cover a good deal of shrinking distaste. After a very little pause she added, “I did like the dancing.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I couldn't get anything else to do.”

“Haven't you any people?”

“Only Cynthia—really.”

He was down on that like a flash.

“Who isn't real?”

“An aunt. I couldn't possibly ask her for anything.”

“Why?”

She looked up again.

“She's that sort. She finished our education.”

“And then?”

“She washed her hands of us. She washed them
very
thoroughly.”

He was silent after that. They moved in the rhythm of the music. Nan didn't want him to speak; for when he spoke they were two people with a gulf between them, but in the rhythm of the music they were near, like the blended notes of a chord moving from modulation to modulation, always together, part of a perfect harmony. He held her lightly and firmly. It was like a dream. And then like a dream it changed and broke. The music stopped.

There were seats between the half pillars on two sides of the ballroom. They moved to the nearest and sat down. Now they would have to talk. A little wondering thought as to what they would say to one another came up in Nan's mind like a bubble rising through dark water.

They were hardly seated before Jervis spoke.

“I want to talk to you.”

Nan said, “Well?”