But, though she had a sudden sense of discomposure, she said nothing. She reflected: ‘He knows I don’t want him to go. And he won’t go.’ But she determined that she would not express this reflection in words. In silence, therefore, she watched him throw Eva’s letter in the fire and sit down to begin a glowing letter of eulogy to his Uncle Edward.
Chapter Twenty-Three
But he did go to the tennis-party, and she did not go with him. There was no scene. Everything fell out with perfect simplicity. All that week the subject had been taboo between them. She had thought vehemently, ‘I know he will not go.’ But he had been making up his mind to go. On Saturday forenoon he dressed himself with extreme care in his lightest suit: it was a matter of acute vexation that he had no flannels, but on this occasion there was no redress from China, and as for his lack of a tennis racquet, he decided to protect himself by saying he had sprained his wrist; and he wrote out a note for Lucy explaining his absence. It was a rude turn of the wheel – for this system of notes had been initiated by herself. When the time of his classes interfered with his lunch-hour and she was obliged to depart before his return, she would leave a pencilled message – this for example: ‘Dinner hot in oven: will be back early. Love’; and now how bitterly was the guillotine to recoil upon her own head!
He said, cloaking his defiance with an idiotic facetiousness: ‘Off for an afternoon at little Eva’s. – Signed, Uncle Tom’
Then, quite ready, he stood for a moment before the wardrobe mirror, inspecting himself gradually a smile of satisfaction came over his features. He bowed to his image and went through the motions of shaking hands, raised his other arm, and, despite his injured wrist, swung a vigorous racquet; then he laughed at his own conceit, adjusted his tie, took a last look at himself, and went out.
It was a delicious summer day – one of those days when the very air holds a glitter from the sun’s brilliance – and as he walked down the road he straightened his shoulders gallantly. He swaggered slightly as he passed Alice Maitland coming up the road from her music lesson, acknowledging her diffident flushing glance with a rather distant upraising of his hat. She was not much, of course, was Alice – that he knew – and his head was screwed too tightly upon his shoulders for him to commit the mildest indiscretion in that direction; but it was pleasant, none the less, to accept the warm tribute of her eyes. That faint answering smile of his might make her happy for the rest of the day. Who could tell?
At the station his mood continued, and with a sudden unaccountable rush of extravagance he demanded a first-class return for Ralston. It was unnecessary, a prodigal excess in one who counted his coins to such purpose; but as he flung himself back in the solitude of his compartment and put his neat shoes upon the elegant upholstery he admitted the experience to be worth the extra sevenpence.
The journey passed quickly: it was not yet three o’clock when the train drew into Ralston. Naturally he was aware of the deplorable solecism of punctuality, yet, although he walked at a most leisured pace, it was still early, much too early, when he reached Le Nid. Outside the gate he paused indecisively. Before him lay the lawn, spanned by a net, marked to the wavering form of a tennis-court, flanked by a row of attendant chairs. But the lawn was empty; so, too, were the chairs. Suddenly something of his assurance deserted him. He couldn’t play tennis; he shouldn’t have come; he had a sudden fear of appearing ridiculous. Quite disconcerted, with a quick movement he turned and moved hurriedly up the road, keeping his head lowered to avoid detection from the windows. Gradually his steps slackened, and for a quarter of an hour he wandered about, annoyed.
Yet, despite his mood, he found himself admiring the pleasant villas of this most pleasant suburb. One especially took his fancy – ‘The Towers’ was the name upon the wide white gate, and the house strove nobly to sustain this title by a lavish display of baroque half-timbering and little stucco turrets visible through the rhododendron clumps of the winding drive. An imposing place, he thought, and somehow the name remained in his mind.
His assurance at last recovered, with a final look at his watch, he made his way back to Aunt Eva’s house.
Now he was late, and the row of chairs occupied by quite a crowd of people who, with backs towards him, laughed and talked with every appearance of intimacy. Moreover, a car stood at Aunt Eva’s gate, a large red car, with beautiful high seats of red morocco leather and a natty little brass radiator with a blue lion embossed upon the front. An Argyll, he saw at once, with art inward tremor; actually an Argyll at Aunt Eva’s gate; and as he opened that gate he hesitated, once more disconcerted, not knowing whether to approach the group or to advance towards the front door.
The latter course seemed safer, and, ascending the three steps, he gave the bell a gentle pull, announced himself with a nervous gravity to the maid who answered the door.
He was shown into the drawing-room, already in readiness for afternoon tea with a profusion of sandwiches, cakes, lace d’oyleys, and polished silver. Very stiffly he waited upon the edge of his chair, his eyes upon the elaborate preparations, his ears attuned to the conversation which came like a chattering of starlings through the half-open window. Actually it was his first real social adventure; and he was nervous. His early anticipations that he would cut a figure at the University had hardly been realised: at that dance, for example, he had gracefully supported a doorway for the greater portion of the evening. And now he started almost as Aunt Eva came pattering in, followed more slowly by Charlie. Both were smiling, welcoming him.
‘But your bag?’ cried Aunt Eva girlishly after a moment’s talk. She wore white pique and an orange bandeau twisted gipsy fashion round her dark hair. ‘Don’t say you’re not going to play?’
He blushed and stammered.
‘It’s my wrist – sprained, you see.’
Aunt Eva looked at the wrist, then twisted her head sideways and wagged a coquettish finger.
‘You must play,’ she declared chaffingly. ‘We’re depending on you. Run up with Charlie. He’ll lend you some of his things.’
‘Really, though – the sprain – it’s quite stiff, you see,’ he protested, with a still heightened colour.
But Aunt Eva, urging them upstairs with a commanding lisp, would have none of that sprain. Before he could discover a more convincing symptom, he was in Charlie’s bedroom, a cheerfully untidy room lined with books and coloured prints, watching his cousin toss out an assortment of flannels from a well-filled bottom drawer.
‘These should fit,’ said Charlie, straightening himself. He was about Peter’s height and age, dark, serious, a little consequential like his father, but friendly; now he surveyed the other and, apparently satisfied, smiled his wide and rather charming smile. ‘Have a cigarette while you change,’ said he, offering his case. ‘I’ve got a racquet stowed away somewhere you can have.’
‘Very decent of you,’ mumbled Peter, unhitching his braces. ‘I felt so laid out. I’d no idea of bringing my own togs.
Charlie leaned against the mantelpiece and let out a long, nonchalant stream of smoke.
‘Rotten court we’ve got,’ he affirmed casually. ‘Balls keep getting into the shrubbery. Silly game too. I do it to keep my weight down.’
‘Haven’t played for long enough myself,’ said Peter in the same manner – his cigarette, which was giving him confidence, dangling from the corner of his lips. ‘More of a game for girls, I think.’ And he pulled off his shirt, unashamedly exposing areas of skin with a companionable hardihood.
‘Two nice girls here today – Kitty and Rose.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m interested in Miss Darting myself – that’s Kitty.’
‘Oh!’ replied Peter. He wanted to say something appropriate, something rather clever, but for the moment he couldn’t think of it. So he let some smoke down his nostrils sophisticatedly, and finished lacing his borrowed shoes in silence. When he was ready, they went downstairs and out on to the lawn. Again he felt awkward and ill at ease as the
y approached the group upon the chairs. Smart people, he thought, nervously preparing his smile. His borrowed flannels made him feel a clown; Charlie’s tennis racquet was like a banjo in his hand; but he got through the rush of introductions successfully with much hand-shaking, exclamations of ‘ Pleased to meet you,’ and an almost continuous ripple of laughter. Really they were nice people, like all Aunt Eva’s friends, and quite young – she liked young people about her. There was Mrs Ivy MacBride – bosom friend of Eva – blonde, smart, gesticulatory, the youngish dashing widow of a deceased gentleman who had made his money in the corset business. And Kitty Darting, an alert, vivacious little brunette with a roguish eye for Charles and a papa who recently had multiplied and dignified some thousands made in butchery by an excursion into the frozen meat trade. Vera, too, was there, anaemic, spectacled, drooping, neatly gowned but not very interesting, beside her a tubby youth named Jim, red-faced, beefy, somewhat hearty, and his sister – Rose!
He was sitting in the chair next to Rose now, was Peter, looking fixedly at a broken string in his banjo (or was it his racquet?), but seeing her round the corner of his too obvious absorption. About him flowed the talk which his arrival had interrupted: the smart gossip of the set – who was giving the next whist drive, weren’t they getting on with the new picture house in Maidenhall Street, yes, weren’t they just, and wasn’t it shameful that Mrs Moody (of all people) had been asked to open the jumble sale next Thursday. At last he looked up at his companion abruptly. She was tall, brown-eyed, and somehow remote, with a soft milky skin faintly dusted by freckles and a coppery tint to her hair, emphasised by the green ribbon which bound it. Her seeming aloofness rather intimidated him, yet he blurted out: ‘Do you play much – tennis, I mean?’
She smiled, altering immediately, the immobility of her features to an engaging softness.
‘Yes,’ she said candidly. And he had thought her distant! ‘Do you?’
Surer of himself, he made a non-committal gesture with his eyebrows.
‘Cricket’s my game,’ he answered meditatively. Had he not once, planted before the chalked stumps in the ‘little rec,’ made seventeen against Brother John Jacob’s bowling? He added, quite convinced through repetition of his infirmity, ‘And I’ve crocked up my wrist.’
She was impressed by the one statement, sympathetic about the other.
‘You live in town, I suppose,’ she remarked shyly: her dignity was but the mask of her softness; yes, for such a divine creature she had, he now saw, a most submissive shyness. ‘I haven’t seen you this way before.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted slowly, with an eye on Aunt Eva, who, out of earshot at the end of the row, paused in her prattle to give him a vivacious nod of encouragement.
‘Actually our place was in the country,’ he added. ‘But we’ve taken a flat in town whilst I’m at the ’Varsity.’
‘So you’re at the University?’ Her eyes glowed towards his interestedly.
He nodded; added laconically: ‘Medicine!’
She clasped her hands. ‘Oh, how splendid! Father wanted Jim to go in for that. Such a noble profession. But he would go into the business. I think to be a surgeon – wonderful!’
There was a pause, during which he looked notably quizzical. ‘You live here?’ he demanded at length.
‘Yes. It’s not so very far from here, our house. The Towers. Dreadful name – but father would have it.’
The Towers! He pricked up his ears and gazed at Rose with a new interest strangely mingled with respect. She seemed a fascinating creature, her eyes warm, her neck very white, her hands soft, placid, her dress attractive, of a thick and most elaborate silk belted with a bright green leather strap.
‘How did you come?’ he said suddenly, half teasingly. ‘I didn’t pass you on the road.’
She looked at him with a smiling surprise. ‘We came in the car. Jim’s mad about it.’
The Towers! And that stunning big Argyll! Really, it was exciting beyond his dreams. This was the society he preferred; for which, indeed, he was justly fitted.
‘Court’s waiting,’ cried Aunt Eva playfully. ‘Rosie and Peter against Ivy and Jim.’
He rose obediently, with hardly a qualm.
‘You’ll need to help me,’ he murmured significantly to Rosie as they walked on to the court. ‘It’s so long since I’ve played.’
She smiled at him almost intimately in reply.
Fortunately the game was not cyclonic. It was mild, easy, and not unlike the ping-pong he had once or twice played in the Guild Hall at Port Doran. Jim’s style was rash – rather fierce shots into the net; and the plump widow, too stiffly girded by corsets of an intimate marque, might giggle freely but she moved in a restricted orbit: her plump breasts outbounced the ball at her attempts to run. And Rose was steady, helpful with her advice. Through that advice he did nothing stupid, but by holding his racquet up the handle and keeping the ball well in the air, acquitted himself, he thought, not unfavourably. They won, did Rose and he, and came off the court to quite a rattle of applause.
‘Good set,’ lisped Aunt Eva. ‘Now it’s our turn! You take Kitty, Charles, I’ll take Vera’; and she led them on to the vacant court with a lively toss of her head.
‘You did splendidly,’ murmured Rosie, sipping the lemonade which he had gallantly brought her from the small side table. ‘With your bad wrist too.’
He took a long pull at his own glass, his eyes upon the game in progress. This was the life. Indeed it was! He stretched out his white legs – really, he looked remarkably well in flannels – smoothed his well-brushed hair, then threw up a glance at Rose.
‘I had a jolly decent partner, you see,’ he remarked daringly. She smiled, watching the tennis in silence. Several sets were played – Aunt Eva was enthusiastic, with a boundless social energy for forming fresh permutations amongst her guests.
‘Ivy, you take Peter this time, and Kitty, you –’
So it went on. Watching her, he thought his aunt charming, the epitome of kindness, and he expanded under that kindness. His confidence grew; he was enjoying himself. Once more he played with Rose, and they encountered each other like old friends. Again they won. Then, shepherded gaily by Aunt Eva, they went in to tea. This was a delightful function, impressive through its very informality, his first experience, indeed, of ‘tea in the drawing-room’ since Uncle Edward had taken him as a little boy to the formal halls of Miss MacTara. Without the memory of his recent triumphs upon the court to sustain him he might have blenched at the swift passage of cups and the feats of balancing demanded of him. But now it was impossible for him to feel self-conscious. He lounged back in his chair beside Rose, his air engaging, slightly superior, finding her a charming companion – quiet and almost gentle.
‘Try some of this cake, won’t you?’
‘I dote on Abernethys.’
‘More tea, won’t you?’
‘Let me take your cup, then.’
Yes, she was extraordinarily easy to talk to, and restful, giving him her whole attention. Not like Miss Darting, whose glances darted archly about the room, or Vera, who had a languid indifference to all but the buttered buns. He was pleased with himself, with Rose – yes, with everybody. When the stage of cigarettes was reached, Charles handed over his case.
‘Have one of these, old man.’
Old man, indeed! It was an enchanting acceptance of equality, the definite seal set upon his social success. A little rush of warmth filled him. These people were friendly, kind, charming. It was too idiotic of his mother not to want to have anything to do with them! He turned casually to Rose:
‘I hope we shall run up against each other again,’ he hazarded. ‘One meets so few really nice people these days.’
She smiled unaffectedly and looked down at her soft, large palm.
‘That’s true,’ she agreed reflectively.
There was a pause. At the sight of her downcast eyelashes, which seemed now to shade her rounded cheeks, he was moved suddenly by a des
ire to say something flattering, intensely complimentary. He racked his brains, trying to think of some remark not too forward, and at length his gaze fell upon the brooch that pinned her dress, which, in the new fashion, was open at the neck.
‘How well that brooch suits you,’ he murmured awkwardly.
She fingered it idly.
‘I don’t care much for these things,’ she remarked, ‘ but it’s a good stone.’
He drew in his breath abruptly, quite confused. He had imagined the ornament to be of crystal, and it was actually a diamond – such a large watering stone that with this new knowledge it made his eyes water in sympathy.
‘You must come and have tea with me in town some day,’ he heard himself say, with unthought-of hardihood.
Their glances met.
‘I’d love to,’ she smiled.
But now Aunt Eva rose, declaring that if they had finished they must get out into the simply gorgeous sunshine.
‘You seem to be enjoying yourself,’ she whispered to Peter in passing. He grinned at her, holding the door open gallantly.
There was more tennis, more laughing, more talking. Between sets he helped Rose to look for a lost ball in the shrubbery. Their heads, bent under a laurel-bush, came so close together that he could see the tiny droplets of perspiration upon her upper lip. Enchanting sight!
Towards six o’clock Uncle Richard strolled out, after his fashion – with nose well up, but with a certain jocularity tinging his severity – to see how things were getting along.
He seemed pleased to see Peter, and after a few moments sat down beside him – somewhat apart.
‘I’m sorry your mother couldn’t come,’ he exclaimed guardedly, crossing his legs. ‘How is she?’