Part 24 (2/2)
It was not more than once or twice in a year that Isabel went by train, and she had never travelled but third cla.s.s in her life.
How smoothly life runs for those who have great possessions! How polite the railway staff were! The station master himself held open the door for the Wanhope party. Now she knew Mr. Chivers very well, but in all previous intercourse one finger to his cap had been enough for young Miss Isabel. Certainly it was agreeable, this hothouse atmosphere. ”Shall you feel cold?”
Lawrence asked, and Isabel, murmuring ”No, thank you,” blushed in response to the touch of formality in his manner. She felt what women often feel in the early stages of a love affair, that he had been nearer to her when he was not there, than now when they were together in the presence of a third person. She had grown shy and strange before this careless composed man lounging opposite her with his light overcoat thrown open and his crush hat on his knees, conventionally polite, his long legs stretched out sideways to give her and Laura plenty of room.
And Lawrence on the journey neither spoke to her nor watched her, though Isabel shone in borrowed plumes. There had been no time to buy clothes, and so Val, though grudgingly, had allowed Laura and Yvonne to ransack their shelves and presses for Cinderella's adornment. But one glance had painted her portrait for him, tall and slender in a long sealskin coat of Yvonne's which was rulled and collared and flounced with fur, her glossy hair parted on one side and drawn back into what she called a soup-plate of plaits.
Once only he directly addressed her, when Laura loosened her own sables. ”Do undo your coat, won't you? It's hot tonight for September.”
”I'm not hot, thank you,” said Isabel stiffly: but slowly, as if against her will, she opened the collar of her coat and pushed it back from her young neck and the crossed folds of her lace gown.
The gown was very old, it had indeed belonged to Laura Selincourt: it was because Laura loved its soft, graceful, dateless lines that it had survived so long. She had seized on it with her unerring tact: this was right for Isabel, this dim transparency of rosepoint modelling itself over the immature slenderness of nineteen: and she and her maid Catherine and Mrs. Bendish had spent patient hours trying it on and modifying it to suit the fas.h.i.+on of the day. Laura had refused to impose upon Isabel either her own modish elegance or Yvonne's effect of the arresting and bizarre. ”Isn't she almost too slight for it?” Yvonne had asked, and Laura for all answer had hummed a little French song--
'Mignonne allons voir si la rose Qui ce matin avoit desclose Sa robe de pourpre au soleil A point perdu ceste vespree I as plis de sa robe pourpree Et son teint au votre pareil . . .'
She discerned in Isabel that quality of beauty, n.o.ble, spirited, and yet wistful, which requires a most expensive setting of simplicity. And that was why Isabel opened her coat. If Captain Hyde had admired her in her Chilmark muslin, what would he think of flounce and fold of rose-point of Alencon under Yvonne's perfumed furs? And then she blushed again because the yearning in his eyes made her wonder if he cared after all whether she wore lace or cotton. Everything was so strange!
Strangest of all it was, to the brink of unreality, that Laura evidently remained blind. But Laura was always blind. ”Why, she never even sees Val!” reflected Isabel scornfully. And yet-- suppose Isabel were deceiving herself? What if Captain Hyde were not in earnest? But her older self comforted her child's self: careless was he, and composed? ”You were not always so composed, Lawrence,” in her own mind the elder Isabel mocked him with her sparkling eyes.
Waterloo, lamplit and resonant: the pulsing of many lamps, the hurry of many steps, the flitting by of many faces under an arch of gloom: dark quiet and the scent of violets in a waiting car.
”What a jolly taxi!” Isabel exclaimed. ”I never was in a taxi like this before. Is it a more expensive kind?”
”My dear Lawrence, you certainly have the art of making your life run on wheels!” said Laura smiling. ”How many telegrams have you sent today?”
”If you do a thing at all you may as well do it in decent comfort,” Lawrence replied sententiously. ”Half past seven; that'll give us easy time! I booked a table at Malvani's, I thought you would prefer it to one of the big crowded shows.”
”Are we going to have supper--dinner I mean--at a restaurant?”
asked Isabel awestruck.
Laurance smiled at her with irrepressible tenderness. ”Did you think you weren't going to get anything to eat at all?” He forbore to remind her of her unfortunate allusion to sandwiches-- for which Isabel was grateful to him. ”Aren't you hungry?”
”Oh yes: but then I often am. Is Malvani's a very quiet place?”
Lawrence looked at Laura with a comical expression. ”What an a.s.s I was! Wouldn't the Ritz have been more to the point?”
”Never mind, sweetheart,” said Laura. ”Malvani's isn't dowdily quiet. It's the smartest of the smart, and there are always a lot of distinguished people in it. Dear me, how long it is since I've dined in town! Really it's great fun, I feel as if I had come out of a tomb--” she checked herself: but she might have been as indiscreet as she liked, for her companions were not listening. Laura was faintly, very faintly startled by their att.i.tude--Hyde leaning forward in the half-light of the brougham to b.u.t.ton Isabel's glove--but she was soon smiling at her own fancy. ”Poor Isabel, poor simple Isabel!” She was only a child after all.
A child, but a very gay and winning child, when she came into Malvani's with her long swaying step, direct glance, and joyous mouth. A spirit of excitement sparkled in Isabel tonight, and every movement was a separate and conscious pleasure to her: the physical sensation of walking delicately, the ripple of her skirt over her ankles, the poise of her shoulders under their transparent veil. . . . Laura saw a dozen men turn to look after the Wanhope party, and took no credit for it, though not long ago she had been accustomed to be watched when she moved through a public room. But now she was better pleased to see Isabel admired than to be admired herself.
As they neared their reserved table a man who had been sitting at it rose with an amused smile. ”Have you forgotten who I am, Laura?”
”One might as well be even numbers,” Lawrence explained. ”So, as I knew Selincourt was in town, I wired to him to join us.”
A worn, fatigued-looking, but not ungentle rake of forty, Selincourt had stayed once at Wanhope, but the visit had not been a success: indeed Laura had been thankful when it ended before host and guest threw the decanters at each other's heads. That she was pleased to see him now there could be no doubt: she had taken him by both hands and was smiling at him as if she would have liked to fling decorum to the winds and kiss him. Lawrence also smiled but with a touch of finesse. His plan was working.
Laura was going to enjoy herself: bon! he was truly fond of Laura and delighted to give her pleasure. But by it he would be left free to devote himself to Isabel.
It was to this end that he had planned the entire expedition. At Chilmark they met continually in the same setting, and he had no means of printing a fresh image of himself on her mind, but here he was free of country customs, a rich man among his equals, an expert in the art of ”doing oneself well”--one of those who rule over modern civilization by divine right of a chequebook and a trained manner. Isabel had been brought up by High Churchmen, had she? Let them test what hold they had of her! Every aspect of their journey and of the supper-table at Malvani's, with its heady music and smell of rich food and wines, had been calculated to produce a certain effect--an intoxication of excitement and pleasure. And he set himself to stamp his own impression on Isabel, naming to her, in his soft, isolating undertones, the notable men and women in the room, describing their careers, their finances, even their scandals--it amused him to watch her repress a start. It amused him still more to stand up and shake hands when the immense body and Hebraic nose of an international financier went by with two great ladies and a cabinet minister in tow. ”One of my countrymen,” Hyde turned to Isabel with a mocking smile. ”I am a citizen of no mean city. Those--” with an imperceptible jerk of the head--”would lick the dust off his boots to find out what line the Jew bankers mean to take in the Syrian question. They might as well lick mine.”
”Why, do you know?” breathed Isabel.
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