Mr. Waite drove her to the station and remained with her, discussing plans, until the train came in, and then stood waving until he could distinguish no more than a white speck receding swiftly into the distance. Then he hurried out to his car and drove fast towards Naylor’s. It was almost eight now, and he did not want to be asked a lot of questions.
He was soberly content as he drove on through the evening light. There were many legal and financial points to be decided and the next weeks would be exceedingly busy, but his attitude towards his betrothed had altered so much that his chief feeling now was joy at having her back again: the practical details were set aside. He hastily assembled the repulsive ingredients of the battery birds’ supper and served them before hurrying off to his own, and as he went, he rejoiced maliciously in the defeat of Mrs. Lucie-Browne. It would be amusing (Mr. Waite relished the word, an unfamiliar one in his vocabulary) to meet her this evening, completely ignorant of what had occurred and thinking of Jean as still engaged to that chap. It would make her look a bit of a fool, thought Mr. Waite, and serve her right. She had meddled too much.
As Jean travelled towards London, her mood was as quietly content as his own. She had lately been endeavouring to practise one of the tenets of the Christian Faith, and avoid fussing about the future. She repeated to herself
Sufficient unto the day
—and
Consider the lilies of the field
—and found both sayings increasingly comforting. Her nature had always been placid; she was a spectator, an observer, rather than a doer, and she found herself able to avoid fuss without much effort. She hoped that poor Phil, who was always on the boil, might be encouraged by her example to lower the gas and relax.
Therefore, following her principles, she had broken her engagement to Mr. Potter as easily as she snapped a thread of sewing silk. Her note to him was not the result of much careful thought; she had merely written down exactly what she felt, sealed it, and given it to a page boy to deliver.
Dear Oliver,
I don’t want to be engaged to you any more as we haven’t any interests in common. Thanks awfully for giving me such a good time. I enjoyed it very much. I am sorry if your feelings are hurt. I thought I loved you but I don’t. All the best and good luck.
Yours ever,
J.
And poor Mr. Potter, who never wrote or said or even thought exactly what he felt, was simply knocked out by it, like the pilot of an enormously complicated aeroplane suddenly blinded by a speck of dust. He just could not believe it. He swelled with mingled fury and suspicion. What was her game? What did she want? He read the note five or six times; he turned it inside out looking for postscripts; he almost smelled it in his passion to read into it some complicated and sinister meaning. The page boy left him sitting in an overstuffed chair with a tiny icy drink before him, reading and re-reading this outrageous little letter, and went away bawling for other, happier gentlemen, and still Mr. Potter sat on. Never in all his easy authoritative life had such a thing befallen him.
We hope that some readers are not licking their lips in anticipation of a blazing row between Jean and Mr. Potter staged in the Savoy Grill, for we have to disappoint them. We will so far concede to their morbid expectations as to admit that both wore evening dress—rows are so much more satisfying when the antagonists are
en grande tenue
—but they did not meet. Jean had just finished changing her clothes when a telephone call was put through to her room. She removed the receiver, and listened long enough to assure herself that it was his own mellow voice demanding what was the matter with her and appealing for fair play; then she replaced it, caught up her evening coat and rushed out of the Savoy by another entrance. A fleeting notion that it was her duty to stay engaged to Mr. Potter in order to save his soul she instantly dismissed as morbid.
She dined somewhere else; and afterwards went on to the last act of a play.
The next day Mr. Potter launched the Awful Silence tactic.
Jean allowed it to remain unbroken.
The following day he sent her roses, and she remembered to return his ring, which had been lying forgotten in the drawer where she had thrown it.
The rest is silence—unless the reader cares to hear the verdict of Mr. Potter’s lady friends upon Jean’s behaviour. They all said they had always suspected that she was borderline, and now they knew it.
FABRIO CAST IMPLORING
glances towards Sylvia but in vain; she would not look at him, and giggled and whispered with Jenny and Louise. Emilio, who had an alarmingly weak head, was seated near the cider barrel and stealthily refilled his mug every time Mr. Hoadley’s attention was distracted from his end of the table; soon he became smiley and knowing and inclined to put his arm round Mary Parkes, who did not like this at all, though she met his efforts with an uneasily good-humoured smile. The low-ceiled shed became very hot in the brilliance and warmth of the lamps, and the motionless air beyond the open door gave no relief. Faces began to shine and flowers to wilt as the generous helpings upon the plates diminished, and conversation became more general and cheerful and was presently interrupted by bursts of laughter. Even Mr. Waite made some dry jokes (usually at other people’s expense), for his private good news put him in an indulgent mood.
It all seemed most comfortable to Fabrio: the brilliant light and savoury food, and the flow of stinging golden drink from
that
little barrel; and how he would have enjoyed it all—if only she had been kind! But there was a miserable load where his heart was, and a dreadful anticipation of worse unhappiness to come. He had lived on hope for months and grown used to that intoxicating but unsatisfying diet, and now that it seemed about to be taken away and replaced by starvation or bitter dregs, he could hardly bear it. He had planned such tender words: he knew exactly what he would say to her; night after night as he lay awake in the camp he had whispered those words to himself and imagined the scene—and now, she would not let him speak. His heart was breaking.
Alda observed his pale face and his silence, and pitied him so warmly that she resolved, in spite of the discouraging results of her former attempt, to speak to Sylvia again when supper was over. Every now and then she encountered the ironical gaze of Mr. Waite and once he raised his glass to her as if in a toast—a gesture so out of keeping with his usual behaviour that she could only stare, but then she laughed and nodded, showing her pretty teeth and gaily raising her glass in return.
Mr. Waite for his part felt triumphant and rather spiteful and years younger. Memories of parties in his youth returned to him, and that love of pleasure which he had ignored for twenty years suddenly, delightfully awoke in him, in spite of the uncouth surroundings and the shabby table appointments. (The poor man did not realise that he was surrounded by the true luxury—beautiful light, flowers, fragrant scents, simple but delicious food—which appeals instantly to the senses and does not rely upon such secondary comforts as stainless steel or draught-proof walls. How far from understanding human beings are those advertisers who promise us electric irons when we crave for fresh grapes!)
Sylvia’s anger abated as the supper went on, for she was too devoted to pleasure and too light-hearted to resist the enjoyments spread about her, and she amused herself by twisting flower crowns for the children and piling their plates with food,
giggling
across the table at Emilio and exchanging jokes with Mr. Hoadley and Mary Parkes. So long as she could avoid catching Fabrio’s eye she now wished him no harm, but woe betide him—she vowed to herself—if he came up to her and tried getting fresh after supper. Then he
would
have had it.
Mrs. Hoadley ate a small meal while keeping an eye upon everybody’s plate. She wanted everyone to enjoy the Harvest Supper. No doubt ill-effects would result; those children would have bad dreams from all that meat at night, and it was high time baby Meg was in bed; Emilio must have had a good third of that barrel to himself already, and she noticed that the man Spray, whose diet at home was mainly sausages and bread, was struggling to conceal hiccups, while cider never did agree with Neil. As for Fabrio, he looked as if he had lost sixpence, and that great camel Sylvia was making enough noise for six. Mrs. Hoadley would have preferred a cup of tea and a small slice of the cake alone in the kitchen with Mary Parkes, who seemed a nice refined girl; she used to work in a high-class perfume and cosmetics shop in Brighton, about which Mrs. Hoadley would have enjoyed hearing. However, she was glad that everything was going well. Even this old shed did not look too bad, though of course you could not really enjoy yourself in a shed with chipped crockery and bent cutlery and such mixed company.
At this moment Joyanna gave her mother a strong kick, as if telling her not to be such a bore, and Mrs. Hoadley’s thoughts took another turn.
Mr. Hoadley glanced affectionately at his wife’s pretty, peaked face. He admired her blue smock and those gallant bows in her hair, which seemed as if they were trying to ignore her clumsy form. Good old Molly, she’s the sort that would spread tablecloth on a desert island, he thought, and for a moment his thoughts left the harvest, with which they had been concerned all the evening, and he hoped that Joyanna (but Mr. Hoadley was not sure that it was going to be named Joyanna)
would
reconcile her mother to life in the country. The country’s the place to bring up children, thought Mr. Hoadley, and if there’s two or three more to come, now Molly’s started, there’ll be no excuses for moving into town.
At length the last piece of rabbit had been conveyed to the last mouth, and he leant back in the Windsor chair and pushed aside his plate crowded with delicate bones.
“And how about you?” he inquired of Meg, who was seated next to him. “Ready for plum fool?”
Meg opened her eyes with a start and smiled drunkenly. The thick pale pink cream was already being ladled out, and she did make an attempt on it but so slowly, nodding the while, that Alda hurried her through the last spoonfuls and gathered her up.
“I’ll pop her into bed,” she said to Mrs. Hoadley. “It won’t take me twenty minutes and she’ll never hold up to the end.”
“Mother! You said she could see the cake cut!” cried Jenny sternly.
“It’s only once in her lifetime,” pleaded Louise, with enormous eyes peering out under a straggling wreath of willowherb. “
Do
let her.”
“Meg will see the cakie!” at once announced Meg, opening her eyes and lifting her head from Alda’s shoulder.
“Meg shall see the cakie,” soothed the cunning Alda, “look, there it is, in the middle of the table.”
Meg leant forward and peered earnestly, while everybody smilingly watched.
She had on a white dress powdered with blue buds which was long for her because it had belonged to an elder cousin; and her thin silky hair, scarcely confined by a white band, fell about her flushed cheeks. Beneath the frilled hem of the dress hung down her little naked brown feet.
“There! Isn’t that a lovely cakie. Now Meg has seen it, she can come to bed.”
“Mother. That isn’t fair!” in a disgusted voice from Jenny. “You said she could see it
cut
.”
But Alda was already half-way to the door.
She had told Mrs. Hoadley not to wait for her return to cut the cake, and now everyone caught up a plate and crowded towards the head of the table. Sylvia was going with the rest when Fabrio, taking advantage of the general movement and acting with the recklessness of misery, hurried down the table and slipped into the seat at her side.
“Sylvia! Love!” he muttered, scarcely knowing what he was saying. “Why are you angry with me? What have I done?” And he tried to take her hand.
Instantly Louise whirled round and stared at him with wide eyes blazing with surprise. He took no notice of her and she stood there, the plate which had been held out so eagerly beginning to droop in her hand as she gazed wonderingly first at him and then at Sylvia, who had also turned quickly round, shaking off his imploring hand.
“Sylvia!” he repeated, and then was silent, staring up at her.
“What on earth’s the matter?” she said, laughing angrily, with an embarrassed glance at Louise.
“Will you—will you come away with me a little while? To go for a walk?” he said. “Please,
Sylvia mia
, come,” and he caught at her arm.
Louise kept her eyes, now grave and wondering, fixed upon his face. She was not yet of an age to understand the scene even dimly, and she vaguely thought that Fabrio must be ill. He looked ill. She felt sorry for him.
“What, in the middle of supper? So likely I’m going off for a walk with you, isn’t it?” Sylvia answered roughly.
“But I want to say something—to speak to you, Sylvia——”
The touch of her round golden arm, glowing from the sun’s heat, inflamed him. He frowned and turned pale beneath the deep brown of his skin. His lip trembled.
“Sylvia—it is important—you
must
come,” he said loudly.
Here Jenny became aware that something unusual was going on behind her, and turned round. Her brilliant eyes, which no
longer
looked on the world so innocently since her friendship with June Wilson, took in the situation at once and she exploded into the gushing, uncontrollable, maddening giggles of early girlhood. Louise instantly caught the infection without knowing why and they both bent over the table, letting their plates slide from their hands while they rocked and rippled, their bright eyes stealing sidelong glances first at Fabrio and then at Sylvia and then at one another.