The Eye of Love (23 page)

3

Thus to Miss Diver's moment of defeat succeeded Miranda's moment of triumph. Watching Harry's face, she saw her plan so successful, she almost laughed with pleasure. How appalled poor Harry looked! and what wonder! For it was hard to say which was most grotesque, the ill-cut garish jumper, or the ropy old black fox, or the fashionable hat perched uneasily on such coils of ropy hair, or the long bedaubed countenance beneath. Perhaps the last: Miss Diver having indeed laid on her cosmetics with a liberal, and shaking, hand.

“Go and speak to her, Harry!” urged Miranda. “Go and say something nice!” She thought he would never move.

He moved then. Stiffly, one stiff step after the other, Mr Gibson crossed the room: as stiffly Miss Diver stood and watched him come: alone, for the girls beside her had drifted away. Miranda glanced round for her parent, and edged through the crowd to slip behind the buffet.

“Look, Dadda, over there!”

“Look at what?” asked Mr Joyce, with his nose in a champagne-bucket.

“At Harry's
Past
!” whispered Miranda. “She's here, I invited her! Haven't I been clever?”

From Mr Joyce's expression, as he slowly straightened and turned, he was about to tell his daughter that on the contrary she had been a great fool—he looked as appalled as Harry. But at that moment a shifting in the crowd gave him a clear view to the door, and though of Harry he could see only the broad back, it was plain towards what person he advanced. No more than a yard or so now separated them, and Miss Diver, standing alone, was in full view.

Mr Joyce stared unbelievingly.

“Holy smoke!”

Miranda giggled.

“It
is
, Dadda! Harry's Past! I can't
think
what he's going to say to her! Come and hear!”

“Not on your life,” said Mr Joyce promptly—still staring in a trance of mingled amazement and compassion. “Poor old Harry!” he marvelled. “A skeleton! A bag-of-bones! A kiss of death! And you don't go either,” he added swiftly. “Let Harry tell her good evening, and I'll send a boy to break it up …”

But Miranda didn't want to miss the fun; she started away; and as Mr Joyce caught her by the wrist, on the other side of the room, with an identical motion, Mr Gibson grasped the wrist of Dolores, and pulled her outside and shut the door.

It was all over in a moment.

To those guests who noticed it, Mr Gibson's behaviour appeared, to say the least, unrestrained. They should have given him credit for his self-control. Not in the public eye had King Hal taken his Rose to his heart again—not though, like two drops of water, they could scarcely touch without coalescing; nor even in the hallway. It was in the study that Mr Joyce caught up with them, standing locked in each other's arms.

4

They had said nothing but each other's names:
King Hal, Big Harry, Dolores, my Spanish Rose: Dolores, Big Harry, my Spanish Rose, my King Hal
. When Mr Joyce entered, that was all they had said.

Mr Joyce's situation was extremely difficult. He had followed only partly to prevent Miranda following; it was also in his mind that Harry had foreseen his Past about to create a disturbance—what a fool Miranda was!—and might now need moral support. True friend in need, Mr Joyce came prepared to reason, to brow-beat, to soothe with port and call a taxi—anything to help poor Harry. The sight that met him in his study necessitated a complete reorientation. Being also a man of delicacy, he felt himself an intruder. That it was in his own study the scandal was taking place offended his delicacy again but differently. It was a very difficult situation.

“Harry boy,” said Mr Joyce, “break it up, will you? Oblige me.”

They didn't start apart. Harry Gibson merely raised his head and stared blankly over the crown of Miss Diver's hat. (It was crushed to a pancake. Part of her hair was coming down.) For a moment he appeared to have difficulty in remembering who Mr Joyce was; then he gently turned Dolores about, still within his protecting arm, so that they faced him side by side. Mr Joyce received the extraordinary impression that he was expected to be dazzled.

“She's here,” said Harry Gibson—as though in full explanation.

“I know that,” said Mr Joyce. “Also I know how, and why. Which is plenty,” he added hastily. It struck him that Harry was perhaps taking a wise line; the less said the better. The great thing was to finish. “Tell me nothing, there is nothing I want to hear,” begged Mr Joyce. “Just for God's sake finish, say good-bye, come back to the party …”

Miss Diver immediately began to sob. Harry immediately re-embraced her—Mr Joyce mightn't have been there. As for Harry's blubbered words of consolation, they were at once so idiotic and so outrageous he could hardly believe his ears. “No good-bye ever again!” Mr Joyce distinguished; also, “My Spanish rose!” Nor did Miss Diver remain silent, both their tongues were unloosed at once, a man couldn't get a word in edgeways. “I'll never leave you again!” cried Harry Gibson. “I swear it!” “How can you?” cried Dolores. “Never while I live!” affirmed Harry. “Now that I know what hell it is—”

“Oh, was it for you too, my darling?” cried Miss Diver.

“Was it for you?” cried Mr Gibson—in joyful agony.

“I just wanted to die,” wept Miss Diver. “Oh, Harry, I've had to take a lodger!”

“Look,” said Mr Joyce urgently, “why not write to each other? In a letter—”

“A chap?” demanded Harry Gibson—aflame with jealousy.

“I couldn't help it. And, oh, Harry—”

“I knew it!” groaned Mr Gibson. “I should never have left you, you're too attractive! But I'll never leave you again, my darling! Say you believe me!”

“How can I?” sobbed Dolores.

“Yes, how can she?” put in Mr Joyce.

“Because I swear it!” shouted Harry Gibson.

“Then you are swearing what is not true,” said Mr Joyce gravely. “Wait, and think, before you swear any more.”

At last, his words produced a brief silence. For the first time, he had gained their attention. “I must hit hard,” thought Mr Joyce. He waited as long as he dared, until he saw Harry on the very verge of breaking out again, before he went sternly on.

“You are wrong to say such things, Harry,” rebuked Mr Joyce. “I wouldn't have thought it of you. How can you bring yourself to say them, when in a week you are going to be married?”

Again there was a pause. He had spoken impressively enough, he thought, to bring them to their senses; but judged it wise (though he was a kind man) to re-administer the bitter, dream-dispelling dose. He deliberately addressed himself to the poor woman.

“When in a week he is going to marry my girl Miranda,” said Mr Joyce.

“No, I'm not,” said Harry Gibson.

5

Once when Mr Joyce was a little boy holidaying with his parents in the Black Forest, the tree under which they all sheltered from a storm had been struck by lightning. All escaped harm, but it was the small boy who kept his head—remembered where the carriage was, remembered to collect the picnic-basket. Jumped and capered, and made his father jump and caper, to convince Mama they were still alive.) The years had brought no weakening of this fibre: even at the thunderbolt-instant of Harry's astounding perfidy, Mr Joyce kept his head.

He thought rapidly and coherently. There were a great many points to think of; but first things first, and the first point was that just across the hall was a party in full swing. Or perhaps breaking up: Mr Joyce looked at his watch, partly to check this and partly to see how long he had been away. As he suspected, it was after eight o'clock; also the passionate and dismaying interlude had occupied barely ten minutes. There was still time to save the immediate bacon.

“Harry boy,” said Mr Joyce, with a certain greatness, “come back with me now to the party and help Miranda say good-bye.”

As well he might, Harry Gibson stared.

“Didn't you hear what I said?”

“I heard all right,” agreed Mr Joyce mildly. “And of course it must be talked about. But not now. Just now I will not see Miranda look a fool.”

“I won't do it,” said Harry Gibson.

“Must you behave badly all through?”

“All right; I can't,” said Harry, more honestly.

Mr Joyce considered him. Emotion always made Harry sweat, and his eye was very wild.

“Then I will go back by myself, and say you have had a little too much champagne,” decided Mr Joyce. “You had better lock yourself in. Then when they are all gone, we can have our talk. The lady—” He paused; the lady was indeed a problem. “The lady, I am sorry, I ask to leave.”

“Not without me,” said Harry stubbornly. “If you think I'm going to let her out of my sight again, I'm not.”

Mr Joyce sighed.

“It is a miracle Miranda is not here already. Do you want a real hair-pulling?”

“Lock
her
—Miss Diver—in too.”

“Miranda will know she is in the house. Don't ask me how, she will. Harry,” said Mr Joyce sorrowfully, “I am doing the best I can for you, when I should be screaming for a horse-whip. When I could be a cry-baby myself, to see you suddenly so ungrateful. Oblige me!”

It was Dolores who acted. Another miracle; the last few minutes had restored her personality as a Spanish rose—a Spanish Queen: the beloved of a King. With a consciously graceful and swan-like motion—to Mr Joyce it looked like a swimming-stroke—she disentangled herself from Harry's arm and kissed him gently on his blubbered cheek.

“Yes, my darling: I do believe you,” she said tenderly. “But you owe this gentleman an explanation, and it's far, far better that I shouldn't be present. Let me go now, then come.”

She swam queen-like, swan-like, towards the door. Harry with far less poise blundered after.

“That chap—!” he began uncontrollably.

There are moments when every woman is right to lie.

“Mr Phillips? I scarcely see him, my darling,” soothed Dolores.

Harry Gibson wavered.

“I shall still chuck him out to-morrow …”

“Yes: to-morrow,” agreed Dolores serenely. “Until to-morrow—King Hal.”

6

Mr Joyce still felt it wiser to lock the door from without; the hall was too full of people leaving to risk any belated Lochinvar-like eruption. He locked it, and put the key in his pocket. It was also necessary to start the champagne-fable: catching the eye of old Demetrios, Mr Joyce winked towards the study and murmured, “Flat out!” Most of all he was concerned to speed Miss Diver, who for all her new-found poise looked to him scarcely capable of getting away alone. (Old Demetrios, observing her swan-like motion, offered a wink on his own account; this Mr Joyce repelled. Harry's Past was theoretically an object of detestation to him, yet he couldn't help feeling sorry for her.) Most fortunately, just then entering the lift he spied that good sort La Harris; Mr Joyce practically thrust his charge into her arms and bade her find the lady a taxi. (“Heat,” murmured Mr Joyce. “Feeling faint.” “Poor thing, I noticed it,” rejoined the invaluable Miss Harris.) Then he returned to the drawing-room and Miranda.

It brought a first moment of relief to realise that the fable which did for the guests would also do for his daughter.

“Where is Harry?” whispered Miranda at once.

“Flat out,” reported Mr Joyce, rather loudly. He caught as many masculine eyes as he could, and grinned. “Flat out is Harry on my champagne! To all the ladies he apologises!—not to you chaps!” It was an amusing enough hit: the champagne had flowed. “Mamma Gibson, I will telephone a hire-car for you!” called Mr Joyce—spreading the jest further; also attending to detail. “I think your boy will spend the night on my sofa!” Out of the tail of his eye he saw Miranda slip from the room and a moment later return looking baffled. “Thank God for La Harris!” thought Mr Joyce piously, and returned to his business of mirth-making. He was so waggish, indeed, the party ended on a note of extra hilarity—husbands moved to describe their own youthful exploits, wives squealing reprobation, the bachelors looking knowing and giggled at by the maidens. “Mr Joyce, I can see you're without a care!” gasped Mrs Grandjean at last. “Simply a man without a care!”

When they were all gone, Mr Joyce wiped his forehead and dealt with Miranda.

It hadn't been difficult to avoid her hitherto; after her return she stopped trying to corner him; she was evidently holding her fire. But Mr Joyce's brain was still working at top speed, and he had no intention of submitting to any fresh bombardment. “For one night, I've had enough,” thought Mr Joyce—and with a groan remembered that the worst of the night might still lie before him. He dealt with Miranda summarily.

“Listen to me,” ordered Mr Joyce—the door scarcely shut behind the Grandjeans. “Without interrupting. Harry's Past is gone. She has been gone since before I came back. You have been a great fool, but there is nothing for you to worry about. Harry is as I said, flat out in my study. You are not to go to him, he doesn't want you and he doesn't look very nice. If all that is understood, put me some cold beef in the dining-room and go to bed.”

Every now and again there came a time when Miranda knew argument vain; this was one of them. Every now and again, a time when her Dadda put his foot down, she knew there would be no moving him; it was such a time now. However discontentedly, she submitted.

“I never thought there
was
anything to worry about,” said Miranda sulkily. “I'm not such a fool as that!”

Mr Joyce looked at her, and said nothing.

7

In the dining-room he ate alone. Miranda had evidently reported the storm-signals to Auntie Bee, they both kept out of his way. Mr Joyce made a good meal; he suddenly found himself famished. When he thought of Harry cooling his heels in the study, he cut himself another slice of beef.