Will O’ the Wisp (2 page)

The first guest to arrive was the Family's latest recruit, Julie, Frank Alderey's newly acquired wife—Julie, rather nervously aware of being the first to arrive and of having to explain to Frank's great-aunts that Frank would certainly be late.

Miss Editha enveloped her in billowy arms and flowing bits of chiffon.

“Dear Julie! But where is Frank? But no, I mustn't keep you from Grandmamma. Tell her, and I shall hear.”

Julie was handed on to Miss Mary, who touched her hand with small cold fingers.

“Grandmamma is waiting,” she murmured; and Julie turned to Mrs. Fordyce.

Did she kiss Frank's great-aunt, or did she not? She paused for a lead, her hand extended, her pretty little head just tilted so as to be ready if an embrace were offered.

Mrs. Fordyce kept her hands folded in her lap and gazed intently at Julie's knees. Julie's skirt cleared them by half an inch. They were quite pretty knees. But Mrs. Fordyce did not look at them with admiration; she just looked at them until Julie, crimson, burst into speech:

“How do you do, Aunt Anna? And—many happy returns of the day—and—Frank is so dreadfully sorry not to—I mean he's been kept—I mean he's so dreadfully sorry—I mean he was coming with me, only just as I was starting, he telephoned to say someone had come in to see him on some very important business, and he asked me to tell you how sorry he was, and to say he'd come as quickly as he possibly could, and to wish you many happy returns from him.”

Julie had a pretty, eager way of talking. She looked a good deal like a little girl who has been put up to say her piece. All the time she was saying it, and for a long half-minute afterwards, Mrs. Fordyce continued to look fixedly at the pretty knees, which, in their flesh-coloured stockings, might almost have been bare. At the end of half a minute she said, “Thank you,” in a deep, dry voice, and Milly March came in, hot in spite of the January cold, panting from the stairs, full of voluble conversation and loud cheery laughter, with her hat on the back of her head and a rustling paper parcel in her outstretched hands.

Julie faded thankfully into a corner and watched the Family arrive. What a frightful lot of relations Frank had! They were all nice, of course—Julie was a friendly little soul—but there were such a lot of them, and it was so confusing to have them all calling Mrs. Fordyce “Grandmamma.” She wondered whether she ought to have said “Grandmamma” instead of “Aunt Anna.” Milly March, who was exactly the same relation as Frank, was saying “Grandmamma”; and so was Miss Fordyce, though she was really her daughter; and so was old Mr. St. Clair St. Kern, though he was her brother. It was really dreadful of Frank to have made her come by herself; she was quite sure to do the wrong thing.

She told David so when he had greeted Grandmamma and drifted into her corner.

“Where's that blighter Frank? Don't tell me he's shirked!”

“No—he's coming. No, David, he really is. No, he really couldn't help it. Oh, David, that's too bad! He really
couldn't
.”

David's sister Betty came in as Julie spoke. Her high voice with its plaintive note could be heard quite easily above all the other voices.

Betty Lester was older than her brother. She was neither like David nor like her own name. Betty suited her as little as Elizabeth; she had not the smooth curves of the one, or the massive dignity of the other. She was thin with the modern thinness, and pale with the modern pallor, the lack of bloom accentuated by the carmine which she had freely applied to her lips; her spine sagged in the mannequin bend; her fleshless legs were revealed to the knee. She looked so immature in the distance that the nearer view was apt to come as a shock.

Julie watched her embrace Mrs. Fordyce, and turned indignantly to David.

“Her skirt's as short as mine!”

“Is it?”

“I mean she—Aunt Anna—she looked—no, really
glared
at my knees. Why didn't she look at Betty's?”

“I don't know,” said David, laughing. “Perhaps she liked yours better.”

“She didn't! I tell you she
glared
. Frank oughtn't to have made me come here alone. Or do you think it wasn't the knees? I called her Aunt Anna. Do you think it was because of that? Ought I to have said Grandmamma? Everybody seems to. But she
is
Frank's great-aunt. David, I don't think you need laugh at me like that.”

“I like laughing at you,” said David, who thought Frank a very lucky fellow. He liked to see Julie all pink and breathless. He liked Julie herself, with her eager voice and the quick movements which the Aunts considered a little too quick. “Dear Julie is rather unformed—a trifle gauche,” had been Aunt Editha's verdict.

“They make me so nervous,” said Julie in a whisper. “And when I'm nervous I do the wrong thing.”

She looked up at David's teasing eyes and then down again. And quite suddenly David was reminded of Erica. He thought of her so seldom now that his thoughts of her were dim and unfamiliar, just stirring in the deeply shadowed places of memory. This was a different thought; it was so sharp and vivid that it hurt.

It was Julie who reminded him. She was slipping off her gloves, and for a moment she stopped to look sideways at her left hand with Frank's ring on it. It was this look that brought Erica back—Erica looking at her ring, her new wedding ring—Erica looking sideways—Erica, not Julie. It was only just for an instant; but it hurt, because Erica had been so young and she had never had any happy times; it hurt, because he had meant to make her happy.

“Hullo, David!” said Betty.

The Charles Aldereys had taken her place by Grandmamma's chair. Mrs. Charles stout and beaming, and the three Alderey girls, pretty, gushing, and arrayed in remnants snatched from the sales and boasted of as tokens of prowess.

Betty looked down her long nose at them and said plaintively:

“It's the first birthday Dick has missed. I do think schools are inconsiderate. I did think they'd let me have him up for the afternoon. But they simply wouldn't; they said he'd only just gone back—as if that had anything to do with it! I do think they might have some consideration for Grandmamma, if not for me!”

“Too bad!” said Julie.

Betty just trailed on.

“They simply make one's life a burden to one with their rules. You wait till you've got boys, and then you'll know what it is. I believe they do it on purpose, just to show parents that they don't mean to take any notice of them.”

Julie put up her hand to screen a foolish hot cheek.

“Who's that?” she said.

The room had been filling fast; one could hardly see Miss Editha's bright new chair-covers for relations. The St. Clair St. Kerns, Grandmamma's contemporaries, with a stout unmarried son and a thin unmarried daughter, Marches, Aldereys, and more St. Kerns, sat, stood, or moved in a space that became every moment more crowded. One by one they greeted Grandmamma and passed on, telling one another how wonderful she was.

At the moment that Julie said “Who's that?” there was a lull in the buzz of talk because, like Julie, everyone was looking at the door, which had just opened.

Julie saw a tall woman in black stand for a moment on the threshold. With a quick, warm admiration she forgot Betty's chatter and said:

“Who's that?”

David looked across the crowd and saw Eleanor Rayne. To his surprise his heart beat a little faster. She was thinner; she looked taller. She wore black, but it did not look like mourning. India, or grief, had robbed her of her lovely bloom, but without it she was more beautiful than he remembered. There was something proud and sweet about the way she looked; there was a sad enchantment in her smile, which outweighed the loss of curve and colour.

She met David's eyes. The smile deepened in her own. She stepped into the room, and David saw that she was wearing violets, the large pale double violets which smell so sweet.

Miss Editha's embrace engulfed her.

“Dear Eleanor!”—three rapid kisses—“My dearest girl, how delightful to see you again! But I mustn't keep you—no, not a moment—Grandmamma first. And—yes, just one word with Aunt Mary. Mary, dearest, isn't this delightful? But we mustn't keep her.”

“I'll come back.”

David caught the deep, grave tone. Eleanor's voice at least had not altered. It gave him an odd sensation.

“Grandmamma”—this was Miss Editha again—“isn't this too delightful? Here's Eleanor.”

“H'm,” said Mrs. Fordyce.

Her hands, with the rings all crooked, were lying on the arms of her padded chair. It was upholstered in dark maroon; the deep colour made her hands look very white, the veins on them dark and knotted. She lifted the right hand now, touched Eleanor's glove with it, and gave her a little push.

“Scent!” she said. “Out!”

She withdrew the hand, covered her mouth with it, and coughed.

“Mary—” She coughed again.

Eleanor stood before her, still smiling but a little bewildered.

“It's my flowers, Grandmamma—my violets. Don't you like violets?”

“Grandmamma doesn't care for flowers,” murmured Miss Mary.

“Scent!” said Grandmamma, and coughed again.

A shocked Miss Editha took Eleanor by the arm.

“My dearest girl! Had you forgotten? Grandmamma can't endure flowers—not scented ones. We
never
have them. Are they fastened with a pin?” Her fingers moved about the bunch. “My dear, perhaps if you—I don't seem to—oh, my dear, take them off
quickly!
”

Eleanor unfastened the diamond arrow which held her violets. With the bunch in her hand, she looked at David. There was a little colour in her cheeks, and a hint of laughter in her eyes.

He came out of his corner.

“How d'you do, Eleanor?” he said; and Grandmamma stopped coughing.

An interested Family gave them its whole attention.

“I'm so sorry,” said Eleanor. “I'd forgotten.” She spoke to Mrs. Fordyce. “David will take them away. I'm so sorry I forgot—it was stupid of me.”

She put the violets into David's hand. He touched her glove, and violet leaves, and stalks just faintly damp. And then she was kissing Grandmamma, and Miss Editha was sighing with relief.

The violets smelt very sweet.

CHAPTER III

A little gilt chair, very upright in the back and rather narrow in the seat, stood in the corner between Grandmamma's chair and the fire. When Mrs. Fordyce singled out one of the Family for conversation, Miss Mary would indicate this fragile seat. When Mrs. Fordyce had had enough of anyone's society, she had only to glance at her daughter, and Miss Mary would murmur in her little mousey voice: “I think, dear, if you don't mind, perhaps Grandmamma has talked enough.”

Eleanor was sitting on the little gilt chair when David came back into the room after leaving the violets in the hall. He came across to his old corner and stood there propped against the wall. He could see Mrs. Fordyce in profile, and he could see Eleanor.

She was much more graceful than Eleanor Fordyce had been. Her black was black velvet—a coat and skirt; the coat open to show something white and the sparkle of a diamond brooch. She leaned forward a little and spoke low. But, low as she spoke, David found himself hearing what she said. Grandmamma was putting her through a catechism.

“I thought he died in the spring. I believe Editha told me that your husband died in the spring.”

Then Eleanor's answer:

“No, it was December—December last year.”

Mrs. Fordyce looked with intention at the little twinkling diamond brooch.

“I'm sure Editha told me it was the spring, and that you didn't come home at once on account of the heat.”

“No, Grandmamma, it was December.”

“Then why didn't you come home?” Mrs. Fordyce's fingers tapped impatiently on the padded arm of her chair.

“I stayed to settle things up, and then to pay some visits. And then I went into Kashmir with a friend. I had always wanted to go.”

Mrs. Fordyce coughed dryly.

“Mourning used to be a time for seclusion,” she said. “Times change.” She coughed again, “Weeds for a year, and black for a year, and half-mourning for another year, was the least that was expected of a widow—the very least. I remember very well that I decided to drop Marion Craddock's acquaintance when I saw her wearing jet wheat-ears in her bonnet eighteen months after George Craddock's death.” She looked again at the twinkling brooch.

“Mourning is just a fashion. Don't you think so, Grandmamma? One does what other people do, but it doesn't make any difference to what one feels.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Fordyce. “That's the modern way of talking. It's very convenient, my dear—h'm—no doubt.” She put up her hand and coughed again. “You've all got such deep feelings that you don't require what used to be considered decent observance. H'm—no—that's not required. But there's this to be said for the old way: all the world can see a black dress. They can't see your thoughts, and I'd be very greatly surprised if you'd want them to.”

Eleanor's colour rose in the bright carnation of her girlhood, and Mrs. Fordyce gave an odd short laugh.

“So you went into Kashmir? I used to read ‘Lalla Rookh.' And your father—yes, it was your father—he had a nice tenor voice when he was a young man, and your mother played his accompaniments. He was very fond of that song about Kashmir in the days when everyone spelt it with a C, and we called our shawls Cashmeres, even when they came from Paris. The Empress Eugénie set the fashion—no, it was Queen Victoria who always gave one as a wedding present.” She drummed with her fingers and hummed in a deep, cracked whisper: “‘I'll sing thee songs of Araby, and tales of fair Cashmere.' And now, I suppose, you're going to settle down. How many years were you in India?”