"Are you glad to get away from London?"
"It has been hot there these last weeks."
Rachel met in the gla.s.s the girl"s black eyes. They were searching Rachel"s face.
"Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?"
"I don"t mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I"ve give satisfaction these last weeks?"
"Why, yes, of course."
"Then I hope, miss, that you"ll allow me to stay with you whether--in London or the country."
The colour mounted to Rachel"s cheeks.
"I hope there"ll be no need for any change," she said.
She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax had arrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just at that time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen of G.o.d"s creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces like tombstones and the laugh of the peac.o.c.k, went from house to house in London and mocked at the world.
They belonged, as the mediaeval jesters belonged, each to his own court, and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to the Beaminster Court and served the d.u.c.h.ess by faith, if not by sight.
Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrapped herself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkward schoolgirl.
She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to take her into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it a compliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail to appreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderly Ma.s.siter cousin on his other side--throughout dinner they happily undressed the world and found it sawdust.
Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He genially enjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answers that he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether he thought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope he wouldn"t mind her saying that of all his books the one----"
He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachel said:
"I"ve never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won"t pretend----"
He asked her what she did read.
"Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?"
"Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now--One of the young men, isn"t he?"
"Yes. He wrote a book called _Reuben Hallard_."
"Ah yes. I remember about _Reuben Hallard_--had quite a little success as a first book. He"s one of your high-brow young men, all for Art and the rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like that myself once----"
She looked at him coolly.
"Why did you give it up?"
"Simply didn"t pay, you know--not a penny in it. And why should there be? People don"t want to know what a young a.s.s thinks about life if he can"t tell a story. All young men think the same--green leaves, moons and stars and lots of symbols, you know--all good enough if they don"t expect people to pay for it."
"I think _Reuben Hallard"s_ a fine book," she said, "and so are some of the others. After all, everyone doesn"t want only a plot in a book."
He looked at her with patronizing kindness. "Well, you see if your Mr.
Westcott doesn"t change. Every writer wants an audience whatever he may pretend, and the best way to get a audience is to give the audience what it wants. It needs unusual courage to sit on a packing-case year after year and shave in a broken looking-gla.s.s----"
She looked round the table. Everyone was happy. The butler was fat and had the face of a Roman emperor, the food was very, very good, Nita Raseley and Roddy laughed and laughed and laughed--
Suddenly Rachel"s heart jumped in her body. Oh! she was glad; glad that Roddy cared for her and would look after her, because otherwise she didn"t know what violence she might suddenly commit, what desperations she might not engage upon, what rebels and outlaws she would not support--
What Outlaws! And then, looking beyond the thickly curtained windows, she could fancy that she could see one gravely standing out there on the lawn, standing with his one arm and his pointed beard and his eyes appealing to be let in.
Then there was an ice that was so good that Peter Westcott and Francis Breton seemed more outcast than ever.
III
After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all went out into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of them--G.o.d walked in all gardens that night.
At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone.
They found the trunk of a tree and sat down--Behind them the trees were thin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by that glimmering l.u.s.tre that starlight flings--a glow that would be flame were it not dimmed by distance immeasurable--they could see the lawns and hedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figure showed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rose sharp and black.
Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertain that she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, as she did, into the shadowy garden.
"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don"t like Monty Carfax."
"I"ve never thought about him," he said. "He"s certainly no pal of mine--why?"
"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to _exist_ on a night like this?"
"He"s always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly.
"But I think him a silly sort of a.s.s--knows nothin" about dogs or horses, can"t play any game, only talks clever to women----"
"I can"t bear that sort of man and I don"t like Mr. Garden either. He"s so fat and he loves his food."
"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly good dinner to-night."
She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he said anxiously:
"I say, Miss Beaminster, we"ve been such jolly good friends--all these weeks. And yet--sometimes--I"m afraid you think me the most awful fool----"
She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then--so am I about a good many things--most of your things----"
"Look here, Miss Beaminster--I wish you"d help me about things I"m an a.s.s in. You can, you know--I"d be most awfully glad."
"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you really care about?"
"The things? ... care about?"
"Yes--really----"