The Reef

  XIV

  If Darrow, on entering the drawing-room before dinner, examined its newoccupant with unusual interest, it was more on Owen Leath's account thanhis own.

  Anna's hints had roused his interest in the lad's love affair, and hewondered what manner of girl the heroine of the coming conflict mightbe. He had guessed that Owen's rebellion symbolized for his step-motherher own long struggle against the Leath conventions, and he understoodthat if Anna so passionately abetted him it was partly because, as sheowned, she wanted his liberation to coincide with hers.

  The lady who was to represent, in the impending struggle, the forces oforder and tradition was seated by the fire when Darrow entered. Amongthe flowers and old furniture of the large pale-panelled room, Madamede Chantelle had the inanimate elegance of a figure introduced into a"still-life" to give the scale. And this, Darrow reflected, was exactlywhat she doubtless regarded as her chief obligation: he was sure shethought a great deal of "measure", and approved of most things onlyup to a certain point. She was a woman of sixty, with a figure at onceyoung and old-fashioned. Her fair faded tints, her quaint corseting,the passementerie on her tight-waisted dress, the velvet band on hertapering arm, made her resemble a "carte de visite" photograph of themiddle sixties. One saw her, younger but no less invincibly lady-like,leaning on a chair with a fringed back, a curl in her neck, a locketon her tuckered bosom, toward the end of an embossed morocco albumbeginning with The Beauties of the Second Empire.

  She received her daughter-in-law's suitor with an affability whichimplied her knowledge and approval of his suit. Darrow had alreadyguessed her to be a person who would instinctively oppose any suggestedchanges, and then, after one had exhausted one's main arguments,unexpectedly yield to some small incidental reason, and adhere doggedlyto her new position. She boasted of her old-fashioned prejudices, talkeda good deal of being a grandmother, and made a show of reaching up totap Owen's shoulder, though his height was little more than hers.

  She was full of a small pale prattle about the people she had seenat Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical information of agazetteer, without any apparent sense of personal differences. She saidto Darrow: "They tell me things are very much changed in America...Ofcourse in my youth there WAS a Society"...She had no desire to returnthere she was sure the standards must be so different. "There arecharming people everywhere...and one must always look on the bestside...but when one has lived among Traditions it's difficult to adaptone's self to the new ideas...These dreadful views of marriage...it'sso hard to explain them to my French relations...I'm thankful to say Idon't pretend to understand them myself! But YOU'RE an Everard--I toldAnna last spring in London that one sees that instantly"...

  She wandered off to the cooking and the service of the hotel at Ouchy.She attached great importance to gastronomic details and to the mannersof hotel servants. There, too, there was a falling off, she said. "I dont know, of course; but people say it's owing to the Americans. Certainlymy waiter had a way of slapping down the dishes...they tell me that manyof them are Anarchists...belong to Unions, you know." She appealedto Darrow's reported knowledge of economic conditions to confirm thisominous rumour.

  After dinner Owen Leath wandered into the next room, where the pianostood, and began to play among the shadows. His step-mother presentlyjoined him, and Darrow sat alone with Madame de Chantelle.

  She took up the thread of her mild chat and carried it on at thesame pace as her knitting. Her conversation resembled the largeloose-stranded web between her fingers: now and then she dropped astitch, and went on regardless of the gap in the pattern.

  Darrow listened with a lazy sense of well-being. In the mental lull ofthe after-dinner hour, with harmonious memories murmuring throughhis mind, and the soft tints and shadowy spaces of the fine old roomcharming his eyes to indolence, Madame de Chantelle's discourse seemednot out of place. He could understand that, in the long run, theatmosphere of Givre might be suffocating; but in his present mood itsvery limitations had a grace.

  Presently he found the chance to say a word in his own behalf; andthereupon measured the advantage, never before particularly apparent tohim, of being related to the Everards of Albany. Madame de Chantelle'sconception of her native country--to which she had not returned sinceher twentieth year--reminded him of an ancient geographer's map of theHyperborean regions. It was all a foggy blank, from which only one ortwo fixed outlines emerged; and one of these belonged to the Everards ofAlbany.

  The fact that they offered such firm footing--formed, so to speak,a friendly territory on which the opposing powers could meet andtreat--helped him through the task of explaining and justifying himselfas the successor of Fraser Leath. Madame de Chantelle could not resistsuch incontestable claims. She seemed to feel her son's hovering anddiscriminating presence, and she gave Darrow the sense that he was beingtested and approved as a last addition to the Leath Collection.

  She also made him aware of the immense advantage he possessed inbelonging to the diplomatic profession. She spoke of this humdrumcalling as a Career, and gave Darrow to understand that she supposed himto have been seducing Duchesses when he was not negotiating Treaties.He heard again quaint phrases which romantic old ladies had used in hisyouth: "Brilliant diplomatic society...social advantages...the entreeeverywhere...nothing else FORMS a young man in the same way..." and shesighingly added that she could have wished her grandson had chosen thesame path to glory.

  Darrow prudently suppressed his own view of the profession, as wellas the fact that he had adopted it provisionally, and for reasonsless social than sociological; and the talk presently passed on to thesubject of his future plans.

  Here again, Madame de Chantelle's awe of the Career made her admitthe necessity of Anna's consenting to an early marriage. The fact thatDarrow was "ordered" to South America seemed to put him in the romanticlight of a young soldier charged to lead a forlorn hope: she sighed andsaid: "At such moments a wife's duty is at her husband's side."

  The problem of Effie's future might have disturbed her, she added; butsince Anna, for a time, consented to leave the little girl with her,that problem was at any rate deferred. She spoke plaintively of theresponsibility of looking after her granddaughter, but Darrow divinedthat she enjoyed the flavour of the word more than she felt the weightof the fact.

  "Effie's a perfect child. She's more like my son, perhaps, than dearOwen. She'll never intentionally give me the least trouble. But ofcourse the responsibility will be great...I'm not sure I should dareto undertake it if it were not for her having such a treasure of agoverness. Has Anna told you about our little governess? After all theworry we had last year, with one impossible creature after another, itseems providential, just now, to have found her. At first we were afraidshe was too young; but now we've the greatest confidence in her. Soclever and amusing--and SUCH a lady! I don't say her education's all itmight be...no drawing or singing...but one can't have everything; andshe speaks Italian..."

  Madame de Chantelle's fond insistence on the likeness between EffieLeath and her father, if not particularly gratifying to Darrow, had atleast increased his desire to see the little girl. It gave him anodd feeling of discomfort to think that she should have any of thecharacteristics of the late Fraser Leath: he had, somehow, fantasticallypictured her as the mystical offspring of the early tenderness betweenhimself and Anna Summers.

  His encounter with Effie took place the next morning, on the lawn belowthe terrace, where he found her, in the early sunshine, knocking aboutgolf balls with her brother. Almost at once, and with infinite relief,he saw that the resemblance of which Madame de Chantelle boasted wasmainly external. Even that discovery was slightly distasteful, thoughDarrow was forced to own that Fraser Leath's straight-featured fairnesshad lent itself to the production of a peculiarly finished image ofchildish purity. But it was evident that other elements had also goneto the making of Effie, and that another spirit sat in her eyes. Herserious handshake, her "pretty" greeting, were worthy of the Leathtradition,
and he guessed her to be more malleable than Owen, moresubject to the influences of Givre; but the shout with which shereturned to her romp had in it the note of her mother's emancipation.

  He had begged a holiday for her, and when Mrs. Leath appeared he and sheand the little girl went off for a ramble. Anna wished her daughter tohave time to make friends with Darrow before learning in what relationhe was to stand to her; and the three roamed the woods and fields tillthe distant chime of the stable-clock made them turn back for luncheon.

  Effie, who was attended by a shaggy terrier, had picked up two or threesubordinate dogs at the stable; and as she trotted on ahead with heryapping escort, Anna hung back to throw a look at Darrow.

  "Yes," he answered it, "she's exquisite...Oh, I see what I'm asking ofyou! But she'll be quite happy here, won't she? And you must remember itwon't be for long..."

  Anna sighed her acquiescence. "Oh, she'll be happy here. It's her natureto be happy. She'll apply herself to it, conscientiously, as she doesto her lessons, and to what she calls 'being good'...In a way, you see,that's just what worries me. Her idea of 'being good' is to please theperson she's with--she puts her whole dear little mind on it! And so, ifever she's with the wrong person----"

  "But surely there's no danger of that just now? Madame de Chantelletells me that you've at last put your hand on a perfect governess----"

  Anna, without answering, glanced away from him toward her daughter.

  "It's lucky, at any rate," Darrow continued, "that Madame de Chantellethinks her so."

  "Oh, I think very highly of her too."

  "Highly enough to feel quite satisfied to leave her with Effie?"

  "Yes. She's just the person for Effie. Only, of course, one neverknows...She's young, and she might take it into her head to leave us..."After a pause she added: "I'm naturally anxious to know what you thinkof her."

  When they entered the house the hands of the hall clock stood within afew minutes of the luncheon hour. Anna led Effie off to have her hairsmoothed and Darrow wandered into the oak sitting-room, which he founduntenanted. The sun lay pleasantly on its brown walls, on the scatteredbooks and the flowers in old porcelain vases. In his eyes lingered thevision of the dark-haired mother mounting the stairs with her littlefair daughter. The contrast between them seemed a last touch of gracein the complex harmony of things. He stood in the window, looking out atthe park, and brooding inwardly upon his happiness...

  He was roused by Effie's voice and the scamper of her feet down the longfloors behind him.

  "Here he is! Here he is!" she cried, flying over the threshold.

  He turned and stooped to her with a smile, and as she caught his hand heperceived that she was trying to draw him toward some one who had pausedbehind her in the doorway, and whom he supposed to be her mother.

  "HERE he is!" Effie repeated, with her sweet impatience.

  The figure in the doorway came forward and Darrow, looking up, foundhimself face to face with Sophy Viner. They stood still, a yard or twoapart, and looked at each other without speaking.

  As they paused there, a shadow fell across one of the terrace windows,and Owen Leath stepped whistling into the room. In his rough shootingclothes, with the glow of exercise under his fair skin, he lookedextraordinarily light-hearted and happy. Darrow, with a quickside-glance, noticed this, and perceived also that the glow on theyouth's cheek had deepened suddenly to red. He too stopped short, andthe three stood there motionless for a barely perceptible beat of time.During its lapse, Darrow's eyes had turned back from Owen's face to thatof the girl between them. He had the sense that, whatever was done, itwas he who must do it, and that it must be done immediately. He wentforward and held out his hand.

  "How do you do, Miss Viner?"

  She answered: "How do you do?" in a voice that sounded clear andnatural; and the next moment he again became aware of steps behind him,and knew that Mrs. Leath was in the room.

  To his strained senses there seemed to be another just measurablepause before Anna said, looking gaily about the little group: "Has Owenintroduced you? This is Effie's friend, Miss Viner."

  Effie, still hanging on her governess's arm, pressed herself closer witha little gesture of appropriation; and Miss Viner laid her hand on herpupil's hair.

  Darrow felt that Anna's eyes had turned to him.

  "I think Miss Viner and I have met already--several years ago inLondon."

  "I remember," said Sophy Viner, in the same clear voice.

  "How charming! Then we're all friends. But luncheon must be ready," saidMrs. Leath.

  She turned back to the door, and the little procession moved down thetwo long drawing-rooms, with Effie waltzing on ahead.