Part 23 (2/2)
It was an empty season in the little circle of Meriton society. Harry's father and mother were away, gone to Switzerland. Andy came down for week-ends generally; all the working days his nose was close to the grindstone in the office of Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co. He was learning the business, delighting in his new activity. Harry would not have been in Meriton either, had he not been in love in Meriton. As it was, he had his early ride, then read his books, then went over to Nutley for lunch, and spent all the rest of the day there. Often the curate would come in and make a four at tennis, but he did not stay to dinner. Almost every evening the three were alone, in the house or on the terrace by the water. One night in the week Harry might be in town, one night perhaps he would bring Andy. Four or five nights those three would be together; and the question for Isobel was how often, for how long, how completely she was to leave the engaged couple to themselves. To put it more brutally--how much of a bore was she to make herself?
To be a spy, a hindrance, a clog, to know that joy waited on the closing of the door behind her back, to listen to allusions half-intelligible, to turn a blind ear to words too tender, not to notice a furtive caress, to play the dragon of convention, the old-maid duenna--that was her function in Vivien's eyes. And the same in Harry's? Oh yes! the same in Harry Belfield's handsome, mischievous, deriding eyes! He laughed at her for what she did--for what she did in the discharge of her duty, earning her bread-and-b.u.t.ter. Earning more than he thought, though! Because of the derision in Harry's eyes, again she would not let Wellgood go.
Vivien should awake to realize that she was more than a chaperon, tiresome for the moment, soon to be dismissed; Harry should understand that to one man she was no old-maid duenna, but the woman he wanted for wife. While she played chaperon at Nutley she wrote letters to Wellgood--letters keeping his pa.s.sion alive, playing with his confidence, transparently feigning to ignore, hardly pretending to deny.
They were letters a lover successful in the end would laugh at. If in the issue the man found himself jockeyed, they would furnish matter for fury as a great deceit.
Harry Belfield was still looking forward to his marriage with ardour; it would not be fair even to say that he was getting tired of his engagement. But he would have been wise to imitate Wellgood--take a last bachelor holiday, and so come back again hungry for Vivien's society.
Much as he liked the fare, he could not be said to hunger for it now, it came to him so easily and so constantly. The absence of his parents, the emptiness of the town, his own want of anything particular to do, prevented even the small hindrances and interruptions that might have whetted appet.i.te by thwarting or delaying its satisfaction. Love-making became the business of his days, when it ought to have been the diversion. Harry must always have a diversion--by preference one with something of audacity, venture, or breaking of bounds in it. His relations with Vivien, legitimate though romantic, secure yet delightful, did not satisfy this requirement. His career might have served, and would serve in the future (so it was to be hoped), but the career was at a temporary halt till the autumn campaign began. He took the diversion which lay nearest to hand; that also was his way. Isobel Vintry possessed attractions; she had a temper too, as he knew very well. He found his amus.e.m.e.nt in teasing, chaffing, and challenging her, in forcing her to play duenna more and more conspicuously, and in laughing at her when she did it; in letting his handsome eyes rest on her in admiration for a second before he hastily turned them back to a renewed contemplation of their proper shrine; in seeming half-vexed when she left him alone with Vivien, not altogether sorry when she came back.
He was up to a dozen such tricks; they were his diversion; they flavoured the sweetness of his love-making with the spice of mischief.
He saw that Isobel felt, that she understood. Vivien noticed nothing, understood nothing. There was a secret set up between Isobel and himself; Vivien was a stranger to it. Harry enlarged his interests! His relations with Vivien were delightful, with Isobel they had a piquant flavour. Well, was not this a more agreeable state of things than that Isobel should be simply a bore to him, and he simply a bore to Isobel?
The fact of being an engaged man did not reconcile Harry Belfield to being simply a bore to a handsome woman.
Among Wellgood's orders there was one that Vivien should go to bed at ten o'clock sharp, and Harry depart at the same hour. Wherever they were, in house or garden, the lovers had to be found and parted--Vivien ordered upstairs, Harry sent about his business. Isobel's duty was to enforce this rule. Harry found a handle in it; his malice laid hold of it.
”Here comes the strict governess!” he cried. Or, ”Here's nurse! Bedtime!
Won't you really let us have ten minutes more? I believe you sit with your watch in your hand.”
Vivien rebuked him. ”It's not poor Isobel's fault, Harry. She's got to.”
”No, she likes doing it. She's a born martinet! She positively loves to separate us. You've no sympathy with the soft emotions, Miss Vintry.
You're just a born dragon.”
”Please come, Vivien,” Isobel said, flus.h.i.+ng a little. ”It's not my fault, you know.”
”Do you never break rules, Miss Vintry? It's what they're made for, you know.”
”We've not been taught to think that in this house, have we, Vivien?”
”No, indeed,” said Vivien with marked emphasis.
Harry laughed. ”A pattern child and a pattern governess! Well, we must kiss good-night. You and I, I mean, of course, Vivien. And I'm sent home too, as usual?”
”You don't want to stay here alone, do you?” asked Isobel.
”Well, no, that wouldn't be very lively.” His eyes rested on her a moment, possibly--just possibly--hinting that, though Vivien left him, yet he need not be alone.
One evening, a very fine one--when it seemed more absurd than usual to be ordered to bed or to be sent home so early--Harry chaffed Isobel in this fas.h.i.+on, yet with a touch of real contempt. He did feel a genuine contempt for people who kept rules just because they were rules. Vivien again interceded. ”Isobel can't help it, Harry. It's father's orders.”
”Surely some discretion is left to the trusty guardian?”
”It's no pleasure to me to be a nuisance, I a.s.sure you,” said Isobel rather hotly. ”Please come in, Vivien; it's well past ten o'clock.”
Vivien rose directly.
”You've hurt Isobel, I think,” she whispered to Harry. ”Say something kind to her. Good-night, dear Harry!”
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