Part 23 (2/2)

”I will be very good to you, Nelly, if you can trust me with yourself.”

It was not the least bit in the world like the love-making of Nelly's dreams. To be sure, he was good and kind, the dear, kind old Robin he had always been. She was grateful that he was not more lover-like according to her ideals. If he had taken her in his arms and kissed her pa.s.sionately like that other--she smelt lilies of the valley where Robin Drummond smelt the wild thyme--she could not have endured it. As it was, she answered him sweetly.

”I know you will be good to me, Robin. When were you ever anything but good?”

Then he kissed her, a light kiss that brushed her lips. He felt his own shortcomings as a lover when he saw the blood rush tumultuously to her face, cover even her neck. Why, she must care for him with some pa.s.sion to blush like that for his kiss. He had no idea that it was the memory of another kiss which had caused that wild flush of colour.

”Well, Nell, when is it to be?” he asked, trying to galvanise himself out of his coldness, trying to make the pity and tenderness which she awoke in him take the place of pa.s.sion.

”When you will, Robin.”

”You will never repent it, G.o.d helping me,” he said again.

They came back, as they were expected to, with things settled between them. Robin had consulted a calendar in his pocket-book and named a date--Thursday, 23rd of July. He would be free then. The House would have risen and he would be able to devote himself to his honeymooning with a clear mind. He had not asked for an earlier date, but it did not occur to Nelly to wonder at that. She was relieved to find it so far off. Already she thought of the time between as a respite, the ”Long day, my Lord!” of those condemned to death.

The Dowager saw nothing wrong with the date. They could wander about the Continent leisurely, coming home early in June to prepare Nelly's wedding-clothes. The General, after his first irritation had pa.s.sed, had brought himself to tell her of his plan about the house. She approved graciously as she thought. It was very generous of the General. To be sure, Robin must have a town house now he was married. Sherwood Square was a little out of the way and quite unfas.h.i.+onable. Still, it was a fine house in an excellent situation to balance those drawbacks. And of course it must be new-papered and painted and modern conveniences placed in it. That could be done while the young couple were away honeymooning.

Robin must be on the telephone, of course. That was indispensable. And the furniture must be fresh-covered, so much of it as they decided to keep. A deal of it was old-fas.h.i.+oned and had better go to a sale-room.

New carpets too. Already the Dowager was making calculations of what it was going to cost the General. She was capable of a certain grim enjoyment in the spending of other people's money.

”Do you propose to live with them, ma'am?” the General asked at last, in a constrained voice.

She looked at him in amazement.

”Why, to be sure. Poor child, she will need someone beside her. Those servants of yours, Denis, they've had their own way too much. I've no doubt there's a terrible leakage in the establishment.”

”If you propose to live with them, ma'am,” the General went on, bursting with fury, ”I don't give up my house at all. Robin can find his own town-house. The servants have done very well for me and Nelly. So have the chairs and tables and carpets. I'd nearly as soon send my own flesh and blood to an auction-room.”

The Dowager was alarmed. She tried to propitiate the General after her usual manner towards him. It was as though she tried to distract a froward child.

”Dear me,” she said, ”dear me! I didn't mean to offend you, Denis. The house is shabby. Those dogs have always sat in the chairs and on the carpets. I only thought that we might put our heads together for the good of the young people.”

”I'm a Dutchman if we will, ma'am!” shouted the General. ”As for the dogs, did you intend to exclude them, too, from the fine new house?

You'd never teach them not to sit in chairs at this time of their lives.”

This outbreak was followed by the usual fit of repentance, in which the General reproached himself for his hastiness. To be sure, he had been annoyed that the wedding should have been put off for so long. In his haste he had said derogatory things about Robin in his heart, which was unreasonable. The fellow was a Member of Parliament and had to stick to his post, to stick to his post like a soldier. Yet, there would be all those weeks of June and July when bad news might come any day about Langrishe: and Nell would be in London and would hear of it.

So, although the thing had come about which he desired, the General was not happy.

CHAPTER XX

JEALOUSY, CRUEL AS THE GRAVE

It was the latter end of April when Sir Robin Drummond presented himself again in the big bare room where Mary Gray transacted the business of her Bureau. The windows were wide open now, and the dull roar of the distant street traffic came in. It had been a showery day, and he had noticed as he came up the stairs the many marks of muddy feet which showed that business at the Bureau was brisk. The women were coming at last to be organised, to learn a spirit of _camaraderie_, to see that their good was the common good, to have hope for a future which would not be always starvation and deprivation, sufferings in cold and heats, intolerable miseries crowding upon each other.

He came up the stairs, looking sadder and sterner than was his wont. He remembered how all last winter he had run up those stairs like a school-boy, being so glad at last to get to the hour he had desired all day. As he pa.s.sed up the staircase now he looked at the walls, distempered a dirty pink. Outside Mary's door they were adorned by the effusions of amateur artists, the children of the working women, messenger boys, casual urchins, with the desire of their kind for scribbling. It was all quite unlovely, yet it had made him happy to come there. It was a happiness that he had had no right to and now it must be relinquished. This was the last time he should come after this intimate fas.h.i.+on.

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