The Light Heart (9 page)

“Do what?” asked Phoebe, breathless, her face upturned to him.

“And then I’m not so sure,” he murmured, and raised her left hand in both his, pushed back her sleeve and set his lips against the inside of her wrist above her glove. “Just
this once,” he said lightly, and let her go. “I
will
behave. I promise.” He offered his locked hands for her foot. “Up you go!”

She looked down at him from the saddle while he arranged her skirt with a deft, impersonal touch.

“Where does conscience begin?” she inquired soberly. “Or haven’t I got one?”

“You’ve got one,” he said, and moved to his own horse and swung up in the easy cavalryman’s way. “But it’s not altogether your conscience I’m afraid of.”

She considered this cryptic statement of his in silence until they regained the road. Glancing once at her preoccupation, he noticed with a pang that she carried her left wrist cradled in her right hand as though his lips had left a bruise, and he sent up a wordless prayer that he might be granted wisdom and self-control for two.

V
IRGINIA
and Archie always took a furnished house in London for the Season, and went back and forth to Farthingale a good deal for weekends. Archie had resigned himself to this
extravagant
state of affairs when it developed that Virginia’s father had arranged a generous marriage settlement for her in addition to her original inheritance in his Will, which in itself had been almost enough to scare Archie off entirely lest people should
think he was fortune-hunting. But as Virginia often pointed out, their having a house in Town simplified things for Bracken and Dinah because the family could be together during their visits without their having to assume responsibilities
themselves
, and they didn’t have to stay at a hotel. Thus it was already arranged that they should all use a convenient little mansion in Hill Street during the Coronation festivities, and Bracken could see his old friends there and collect some new ones.

Virginia discovered that Bracken was rather cultivating the German Embassy this summer, for dark reasons of his own. After a year of ill-health the old German Ambassador had died about Christmas time, and Count Paul Wölff-Metternich had succeeded him, and the Embassy had some new blood and was humming with activity, social and, said Bracken significantly, otherwise. The recurrent Anglo-German tension had eased off a bit again, now that the Kaiser had got it into his thick head that England was going to win the war in South Africa in spite of persistent Continental crowing to the contrary, and Wilhelm had decided to be congratulatory to his Uncle
Edward,
instead of egging on the other side as he had done in the beginning. But Bracken nursed an obstinate, uncomfortable conviction that England’s next war would be with Germany, and Archie was inclined to agree with him. Whenever they started talking like that Virginia would beg them not to be morbid, and would invite them hastily to come and see the baby taking the air on the lawn in her pram, or some such domestic diversion.

Official Court mourning for the old Queen had ended, peace in South Africa was rumoured, though prematurely, for guerrilla warfare still dragged on, and England was putting itself
en fête
for the coronation of a very human King who loved to go to the theatre and the races and gay dinner parties with bridge to follow. By his wish the dull mid-afternoon
Drawing-rooms
of his mother’s reign had given way to brilliant evening Courts, where the new electric light at Buckingham Palace
could show off the gowns and jewels and flowers and uniforms, and where refreshments were served and the hock cup was said to be something to dream about. The first evening Court of Edward’s reign, in March, had gone off in a blaze of success, and the ordeal for débutantes was found to have been
mercifully
mitigated. There had been no presentations during the past year of mourning, and the lists for the Coronation Summer Courts were crowded. There was some excitement in the family therefore when Winifred as the new Countess of Enstone received her cards for the evening of May
twenty-fourth
, to be presented by her husband’s aunt, Lady Davenant, who had sponsored Clare the year of the Jubilee.

Bracken and Dinah would be off for Spain on the twelfth, having delayed in order to attend the party Winifred was giving at the Hall just before the family departed for the Town house in St. James’s Square. Winifred’s parties usually turned out to be miniature balls where everybody wore their absolute best, and there were caterers and a band down from London, and the floral decorations were beyond words, and everyone ate and drank a great deal and danced until dawn.

Phoebe looked forward to the evening as her own début, and after much indecision was going to wear the white chiffon trimmed with pink ribbon and trails of tiny artificial pink roses on the deep berthe and the triple flounce at the bottom of the flaring skirt. A wide pointed pink satin girdle
emphasized
her narrow waist, and the slippers and fan which went with it were pink too.

Maia’s father was having one of his bad spells and she could not leave Yorkshire, so it came about quite naturally that Oliver as the nearest unattached bachelor should be paired with Phoebe, leaving Rosalind to Charles, because as Winifred put it they were used to each other and one didn’t nave to worry. Eden was as usual attended everywhere she went by her faithful shadow, the rector—a saintly, silent man with
iron-grey
hair and a deeply lined, ascetic face, whose modest sum of happiness was just to bask in Eden’s presence, demanding
nothing, uttering little, and exuding a pathetic sort of beatitude that she had come back to England once more, where he could look at her, fetch her tea and cakes, open doors for her, keep track of her needlework and handkerchiefs and fans, place fire-screens and chairs to her comfort, and strive
single-mindedly
to anticipate her every wish. “Mother’s beau”
Virginia
called him, but without ridicule, for everyone loved him and sympathized with his unselfconscious devotion. Eden had long since ceased to be embarrassed by him and accepted his homage as simply as it was given, and even went so far as to invent little needs to make him happy if things got slack. His wife had died many years before, and he lived with an elderly sister who kept house for him. He seemed to have no idea of trespassing further on Eden’s more recent bereavement,
probably
because he recognized the hopelessness of trying to be anything more to her than he already was—a cherished and reliable friend.

Rosalind and her mamma had come over to Farthingale for the weekend of Winifred’s party and the Hall was full of new guests, though there was always room there for Charles Laverham and the Chetwynds whenever they chose to run down from London. Oliver quite naturally wanted to see something of his sister Dinah, and was always in and out of Farthingale to luncheon, tea, or croquet on the lawn. With Rosalind staying under the same roof, Phoebe now had an opportunity to observe at close hand the girl she was convinced would be the unconscious model for her newest heroine, in the book she planned to write as soon as she got home again.
Virginia
was devoted to Rosalind and Archie said she had a very soothing effect on him, like a glass of sherry at the end of a hard day. Rosalind laughed rudely at the idea that any of his days were hard, and said she would ask him for a character when she came to get married.

Phoebe seized the opportunity one day when they were strolling across the lawn a little behind the others, who had come out after tea to admire the lupins in the border, and asked
Oliver why on earth he had not fallen in love with Rosalind as Virginia wanted him to. Oliver raised his eyebrows.

“How women matchmake!” he said. “Rosalind is a darling, and I’m exceedingly fond of her, but I should feel somehow incestuous if I married her!”

“But you’re not related, are you?”

“Not a bit. But anyway—” He gave her a droll, sidelong glance. “—heaven preserve me from Mam
ma!
”

“Virginia says Mam
ma
has spoilt Rosalind’s chances more than once.”

“I can well believe it.”

“And that rules out Charles too, doesn’t it?”

“Very likely. Is Charles in the race?”

“It’s hard to tell. He’s so nice to us all.”

“That’s the Guardsman in him! Keep them all guessing, is their rule! You might wake up some morning and find it was you he was after all the time!”

Their eyes met intimately, secretly smiling, and Phoebe shook her head.

“I’d rather it was Rosalind,” she said. “Oliver—what about when we all go up to Town next week? Shall I be able to see you
ever?
”

“Oh, that’s all arranged for,” he said easily. “I shall be there too. I have to see a lot of doctor people, so I shall be staying at Belgrave Square again. Except for a run up to Yorkshire for a few days.”

The quiet words still lay between them when they rejoined Virginia and the rest beside the lupins.

The days were passing fleetly for Phoebe, in alternate
exhilaration
and despair. There were times when she told herself that nothing mattered except that she had seen him, knew he was in the same world, and hadn’t got to live and die without ever dreaming there was such a man as Oliver to love. And there were other times when life without him seemed too empty and hopeless to contemplate, and Williamsburg and Miles were something some other girl had lived, and there was
no place there, at all, for Phoebe Sprague, and she tried to think what she might do in order never to go back. In these moods she was likely to find Oliver’s effortless composure, his casual ways and good spirits rather infuriating, and she was even inclined to believe that he didn’t really want her and wasn’t suffering as she was—until at a glimpse of his face in a moment of unguarded repose, a quick glance from his changing eyes, she knew, with repentant certainty, that it wasn’t that Oliver didn’t care, it was just that he knew how to live, and she ached with compassion for him, who was going to have to beg for everything he got from Maia. Oliver wouldn’t beg from any woman. He would just do without. And she, Phoebe, was the girl he should have had—she who had thrown herself head first into love and was now drowning in it.

Oliver and Charles and the rector all dined at Farthingale the night of Winifred’s party, in order to escort their respective charges from door to door. That made ten for the carriages, and things divided up so that Phoebe and Oliver made the drive with Dinah and Bracken in the motor car Bracken had insisted upon hiring for his own use, and they of course arrived before the others.

“I suppose I shall have to use discretion here,” Oliver murmured above her dance card, and just then Bracken tweaked it out of his fingers, remarking that he had taught Phoebe to dance himself, by gum, and that gave him rights, and Oliver said, “Put me down for the supper dance, you silly ass, I hadn’t finished.” So it was Bracken’s hand and not Oliver’s which set the initials O.C. opposite the supper dance,
underneath
his own for a waltz, and Phoebe realized that the two best-looking men in the room were squabbling over her dance card, which was about all any girl could ask at her début, and she never saw the card again till it was full.

Then she was waltzing on a still uncrowded floor with her hand in Oliver’s, both wearing white gloves, and his arm around her waist. Her head swam and she was short of breath, and Oliver was covering a lot of ground and making her
ruffled skirts swirl just for the fun of it while there was room, and it was one of the times when the present golden moment was worth anything which might catch up with her later on.

The floor filled up as more and more guests arrived, and partners came and went, with Oliver at discreet intervals, until they came to Bracken’s waltz, which was the last before the supper dance. As she walked with him towards the ballroom, which was also the picture gallery, they encountered Clare, who wore a worried look and asked if they had seen Oliver. Bracken pointed him out, leaning up against a door-casing chatting with Eden and her rector, and Clare said, “He oughtn’t to be dancing so much, but he’s having such a good time I hate to say anything.”

“But I thought he was quite fit again,” said Bracken.

“Well, he’s not, you take my word for it,” Clare told him rather sharply, for she had always idolized her brother Oliver as the handsomest one of the five. “He’d murder me for mentioning it, but Edward says the poor boy is never out of pain, and it’s high time he saw the doctors again.”

“Phoebe’s got him for the next, and supper,” said Bracken, and added to her, “You’d better sit it out. But don’t let him catch on.”

Phoebe nodded, and the bright, beautiful evening fell to bits all around her as she moved out on the floor with Bracken. Oliver in pain, over doing it, having a good time, and nobody daring to stop him. Anguish rolled in on her, blotting out the lights and the music. She faltered in Bracken’s arms, and he glanced down at her quizzically.

“Tired?” he said. “You’ve been at it without stopping ever since we came. How does it feel to be the belle of the ball?”

“Bracken—Oliver’s wound—is it bad?”

“Pretty bad, I guess. He kept on going after he was hit, and got some kind of complications. It won’t kill him, but he’s got to go lightly for a while, and he’s not the kind to do that.”

“But he’s rejoining the regiment this summer, he says.”

“At this rate they won’t take him back before the end of the
year. He caught a piece of shrapnel as big as your fist
somewhere
in his back, but he took his message on through, and they gave him a medal, and he’s a blooming hero and entitled to a bit of rest. But don’t for God’s sake try to baby him or he’ll dance all night just to show us. He’s an obstinate beggar, you know. Enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes—it’s wonderful,” she assured him automatically, through a mist of apprehension and anxiety to get back to Oliver quickly and make him sit down, to make sure that he was all right and that the wound wasn’t killing him, to search his gay, smiling face for signs of the pain he was never without. So that by the time Bracken’s waltz was ended and Oliver came up to them it was all she could do to stand quietly while he and Bracken exchanged a couple of friendly insults and Bracken left them.