Barker stepped back and surveyed with modest pride the dinner-table to which he had been putting the finishing touches. It was an artistic job and a credit to him.
"That's that!" said Barker, satisfied.
He went to the window and looked out. The fog which had lasted well into the evening, had vanished now, and the clear night was bright with stars. A distant murmur of traffic came from the direction of Piccadilly.
As he stood there, the front-door bell rang, and continued to ring in little spurts of sound. If character can be deduced from bell-ringing, as nowadays it apparently can be from every other form of human activity, one might have hazarded the guess that whoever was on the other side of the door was determined, impetuous, and energetic.
"Barker!"
Freddie Rooke pushed a tousled head, which had yet to be brushed into the smooth sleekness that made a delight to the public eye, out of a room down the passage.
"Sir?"
"Somebody ringing."
"I heard, sir. I was about to answer the bell."
"If it's Lady Underhill, tell her I'll be in in a minute."
"I fancy it is Miss Mariner, sir. I think I recognize her touch."
He made his way down the passage to the front-door, and opened it. A girl was standing outside. She wore a long grey fur coat, and a filmy hood covered her hair. As Barker opened the door, she scampered in like a grey kitten.
"Brrh! It's cold!" she exclaimed. "Hullo, Barker!"
"Good evening, miss."
"Am I the last or the first or what?"
Barker moved to help her with her cloak.
"Sir Derek and her ladyship have not yet arrived, miss. Sir Derek went to bring her ladyship from the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Rooke is dressing in his bedroom and will be ready very shortly."
The girl had slipped out of the fur coat, and Barker cast a swift glance of approval at her. He had the valet's unerring eye for a thoroughbred, and Jill Mariner was manifestly that. It showed in her walk, in every move of her small, active body, in the way she looked at you, in the way she talked to you, in the little tilt of her resolute chin. Her hair was pale gold, and had the brightness of colouring of a child's. Her face glowed, and her grey eyes sparkled. She looked very much alive.
It was this liveliness of hers that was her chief charm. Her eyes were good and her mouth, with its small, even teeth, attractive, but she would have laughed if anybody had called her beautiful. She sometimes doubted if she were even pretty. Yet few men had met her and remained entirely undisturbed. She had a magnetism. One hapless youth, who had laid his heart at her feet and had been commanded to pick it up again, had endeavoured subsequently to explain her attraction (to a bosom friend over a mournful bottle of the best in the club smoking-room) in these words: "I don't know what it is about her, old man, but she somehow makes a feller feel she's so damned interested in a chap, if you know what I mean." And though not generally credited in his circle with any great acuteness, there is no doubt that the speaker had achieved something approaching a true analysis of Jill's fascination for his sex. She was interested in everything Life presented to her notice, from a Coronation to a stray cat. She was vivid. She had sympathy. She listened to you as though you really mattered. It takes a man of tough fibre to resist these qualities. Women, on the other hand, especially of the Lady Underhill type, can resist them without an effort.
"Go and stir him up," said Jill, alluding to the absent Mr. Rooke. "Tell him to come and talk to me. Where's the nearest fire? I want to get right over it and huddle."
"The fire's burning nicely in the sitting-room, miss."
Jill hurried into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Barker's esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Barker had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had brought with him from Oxford, that home of comfortable chairs, and on the photographs that studded the walls. In the centre of the mantelpiece, the place of honour, was the photograph of herself which she had given Derek a week ago.
"You're simply wonderful, Barker! I don't see how you manage to make a room so cosy!" Jill sat down on the club fender that guarded the fireplace, and held her hands over the blaze. "I can't understand why men ever marry. Fancy having to give up all this!"
"I am gratified that you appreciate it, miss. I did my best to make it comfortable for you. I fancy I hear Mr. Rooke coming now."
"I hope the others won't be long. I'm starving. Has Mrs. Barker got something very good for dinner?"
Freddie Rooke, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes they stay right, sometimes they wriggle up sideways. Life is full of these anxieties.
"I shouldn't touch it," said Jill. "It looks beautiful, and, if I may say so in confidence, is having a most disturbing effect on my emotional nature. I'm not at all sure I shall be able to resist it right through the evening. It isn't fair of you to try to alienate the affections of an engaged young person like this."
Freddie squinted down, and became calmer.
"Hullo, Jill, old thing. Nobody here yet?"
"Well, I'm here--the petite figure seated on the fender. But perhaps I don't count."
"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."
"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"
Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other sex.
"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."
"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but somehow I've never been able to manage it."
"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know, there's something about you! You're--what's the word?--you've got such small bones."
"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It makes me feel like a skeleton."
"I mean to say, you're--you're dainty!"
"That's much better."
"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half. You look like a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"
"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er--you do realize that I'm bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you sound as if you were going to propose."
Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass. Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an earnest, paternal gaze.
"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you about that--being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got you alone before the Curse arrived."
"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and encouraging."
"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I never know what to say to her."
"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"
"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast. "Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this morning. You don't know what you're up against!"
"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"
Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assisted it with coal.
"It's this way," he said. "Of course, dear old Derek's the finest chap in the world."
"I know that," said Jill softly. She patted Freddie's hand with a little gesture of gratitude. Freddie's devotion to Derek was a thing that always touched her. She looked thoughtfully into the fire, and her eyes seemed to glow in sympathy with the glowing coals. "There's nobody like him!"
"But," continued Freddie, "he always has been frightfully under his mother's thumb, you know."
Jill was conscious of a little flicker of irritation.
"Don't be absurd, Freddie. How could a man like Derek be under anybody's thumb?"
"Well, you know what I mean!"
"I don't in the least know what you mean."
"I mean, it would be rather rotten if his mother set him against you."
Jill clenched her teeth. The quick temper which always lurked so very little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother. The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing it out independently. She was annoyed, and she expended her annoyance, as women will do, upon the innocent bystander.
"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when you and that awful Mason boy--what was his name? Wally Mason--teased me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well, all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Barker to bring me a jug of water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a mother, but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek...."
Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was always the way with Jill. One moment she would be raging; the next, something would tickle her sense of humour and restore her instantly to cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle Chris taking the trouble to warn anybody against anything except the wrong brand of wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a picture before which wrath melted away. She chuckled, and Freddie, who had been wilting on the fender, perked up.
"You're an extraordinary girl, Jill. One never knows when you're going to get the wind up."
"Isn't it enough to make me get the wind up, as you call it, when you say absurd things like that?"
"I meant well, old girl!"
"That's the trouble with you. You always do mean well. You go about the world meaning well till people fly to put themselves under police protection. Besides, what on earth could Lady Underhill find to object to in me? I've plenty of money, and I'm one of the most charming and attractive of Society belles. You needn't take my word for that, and I don't suppose you've noticed it, but that's what Mr. Gossip in the Morning Mirror called me when he was writing about my getting engaged to Derek. My maid showed me the clipping. There was quite a long paragraph, with a picture of me that looked like a Zulu chieftainess taken in a coal-cellar during a bad fog. Well, after that, what could anyone say against me? I'm a perfect prize! I expect Lady Underhill screamed with joy when she heard the news and went singing all over her Riviera villa."
"Yes," said Freddie dubiously. "Yes, yes, oh, quite so, rather!"
Jill looked at him sternly.
"Freddie, you're concealing something from me! You don't think I'm a charming and attractive Society belle! Tell me why not and I'll show you where you are wrong. Is it my face you object to, or my manners, or my figure? There was a young bride of Antigua, who said to her mate, 'What a pig you are!' Said he, 'Oh, my queen, is it manners you mean, or do you allude to my fig-u-ar?' Isn't my figuar all right, Freddie?"
"Oh, I think you're topping."
"But for some reason you're afraid that Derek's mother won't think so. Why won't Lady Underhill agree with Mr. Gossip?"
Freddie hesitated.
"Speak up!"
"Well, it's like this. Remember, I've known the old devil...."
"Freddie Rooke! Where do you pick up such expressions? Not from me!"
"Well, that's how I always think of her! I say I've known her ever since I used to go and stop at their place when I was at school, and I know exactly the sort of things that put her back up. She's a what-d'you-call-it. I mean to say, one of the old school, don't you know. And you're so dashed impulsive, old girl. You know you are! You are always saying things that come into your head."
"You can't say a thing unless it comes into your head."
"You know what I mean," Freddie went on earnestly, not to be diverted from his theme. "You say rummy things and you do rummy things. What I mean to say is, you're impulsive."
"What have I ever done that the sternest critic could call rummy?"
"Well, I've seen you with my own eyes stop in the middle of Bond Street and help a lot of fellows shove along a cart that had got stuck. Mind you, I'm not blaming you for it...."
"I should hope not. The poor old horse was trying all he knew to get going, and he couldn't quite make it. Naturally, I helped."
"Oh, I know. Very decent and all that, but I doubt if Lady Underhill would have thought a lot of it. And you're so dashed chummy with the lower orders."
"Don't be a snob, Freddie."
"I'm not a snob," protested Freddie, wounded. "When I'm alone with Barker--for instance--I'm as chatty as dammit. But I don't ask waiters in public restaurants how their lumbago is."
"Have you ever had lumbago?"
"No."
"Well, it's a very painful thing, and waiters get it just as badly as dukes. Worse, I should think, because they're always bending and stooping and carrying things. Naturally one feels sorry for them."
"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has got lumbago?"
"I ask him, of course."
"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain it. I mean to say, if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."
Jill uttered an exclamation.
"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"
Barker appeared from nowhere.
"Yes, miss?"
"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"
"A good deal better miss, thank you."
"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"
"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."
"Splendid!"
Jill went back into the sitting-room.
"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."
She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs, then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would arrive," she said.
"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."
"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."
The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.
"Are you nervous?" he asked, astonished.
"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"
"Well, I should never have thought it."
"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside, terrified!"
"You don't look it, by Jove!"
"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't be if they don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed the keys. "Suppose she doesn't like me, Freddie! You see how you've scared me."
"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."
"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs. Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...
John took me round to see his mother,
his mother,
his mother!
And when he'd introduced us to each other,
She sized up everything that I had on.
She put me through a cross-examination:
I fairly boiled with aggravation:
Then she shook her head,
Looked at me and said:
'Poor John! Poor John!'
Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"
John took me round to see his mother...!
"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."
"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.
"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."
"O-o-o-other!"
"She sized up everything that I had on!"
"Pom-pom-pom!"
"She put me through a cross-examination...."
Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce them to absurdity, to turn into farce the gathering tragedy which had been weighing upon her nerves.
Then she shook her head,
Looked at me and said:
'Poor John!'....
"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"
"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check himself.
"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is served!"
