The Woman with the Fan

CHAPTER IX

IN the morning Lord Holme woke very late and in a different humour. Lady Holme was already up, sitting by a little table and pouring out tea, when he stretched himself, yawned, turned over, uttered two or three booming, incohorent exclamations, and finally raised himself on one arm, exhibiting a touzled head and a pair of blinking eyes, stared solemnly at his wife’s white figure and at the tea-table, and ejaculated:

“Eh?”

“Tea?” she returned, lifting up the silver teapot and holding it towards him with an encouraging, half-playful gesture.

Lord Holme yawned again, put up his hands to his hair, and then looked steadily at the teapot, which his wife was moving about in the sunbeams that were shining in at the window. The morning was fine.

“Tea, Fritz?”

He smiled and began to roll out of bed. But the action woke up his memory, and when he was on his feet he looked at his wife again more doubtfully. She saw that he was beginning, sleepily but definitely, to consider whether he should go on being absolutely furious about the events of the preceding night, and acted with promptitude.

“Don’t be frightened,” she said quickly. “I’ve made up my mind to forgive you. You’re only a great schoolboy after all. Come along.”

She began to pour out the tea. It made a pleasant little noise falling into the cup. The sun was wonderfully bright in the pretty room, almost Italian in its golden warmth. Lady Holme’s black Pomeranian, Pixie, stood on its hind legs to greet him. He came up to the sofa, still looking undecided, but with a wavering light of dawning satisfaction in his eyes.

“You behaved damned badly last night,” he growled.

He sat down beside his wife with a bump. She put up her hand to his rough, brown cheek.

“We both behaved atrociously,” she answered. “There’s your tea.”

She poured in the cream and buttered a thin piece of toast. Lord Holme sipped. As he put the cup down she held the piece of toast up to his mouth. He took a bite.

“And we both do the Christian act and forgive each other,” she added.

He leaned back. Sleep was flowing away from him, full consciousness of life and events returning to him.

“What made you speak to that feller?” he said.

“Drink your tea. I don’t know. He looked miserable at being avoided, and—”

“Miserable! He was drunk. He’s done for himself in London, and pretty near done for you too.”

As he thought about it all a cloud began to settle over his face. Lady Holme saw it and said:

“That depends on you, Fritz.”

She nestled against him, put her hand over his, and kept on lifting his hand softly and then letting it fall on his knee, as she went on:

“That all depends on you.”

“How?”

He began to look at her hand and his, following their movements almost like a child.

“If we are all right together, obviously all right, very, very par-ti-cu-lar-ly all right—voyez vous, mon petit chou?—they will think nothing of it. ‘Poor Mr. Carey! What a pity the Duke’s champagne is so good!’ That’s what they’ll say. But if we—you and I—are not on perfect terms, if you behave like a bear that’s been sitting on a wasps’ nest—why then they’ll say—they’ll say—”

“What’ll they say?”

“They’ll say, ‘That was really a most painful scene at the Duke’s. She’s evidently been behaving quite abominably. Those yellow women always bring about all the tragedies—‘”

“Yellow women!” Lord Holme ejaculated.

He looked hard at his wife. It was evident that his mind was tacking.

“Miss Schley heard what you said to the feller,” he added.

“People who never speak hear everything—naturally.”

“How d’you mean—never speak? Why, she’s full of talk.”

“How well she listened to him!” was Lady Holme’s mental comment.

“If half the world heard it doesn’t matter if you and I choose it shouldn’t. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you did anything last night—afterwards—that will make a scandal?”

“Ah!”

“Did you?”

“That’s all right.”

He applied himself with energy to the toast. Lady Holme recognised, with a chagrin which she concealed, that Lord Holme was not going to allow himself to be “managed” into any revelation. She recognised it so thoroughly that she left the subject at once.

“We’d better forgive and forget,” she said. “After all, we are married and I suppose we must stick together.”

There was a clever note of regret in her voice.

“Are you sorry?” Lord Holme said, with a manner that suggested a readiness to be surly.

“For what?”

“That we’re married?”

She sat calmly considering.

“Am I? Well, I must think. It’s so difficult to be sure. I must compare you with other men—”

“If it comes to that, I might do a bit of comparin’ too.”

“I should be the last to prevent you, old boy. But I’m sure you’ve often done it already and always made up your mind afterwards that she wasn’t quite up to the marrying mark.”

“Who wasn’t?”

“The other—horrid creature.”

He could not repress a chuckle.

“You’re deuced conceited,” he said.

“You’ve made me so.”

“I—how?”

“By marrying me first and adoring me afterwards.”

They had finished tea and were no longer preoccupied with cups and saucers. It was very bright in the room, very silent. Lord Holme looked at his wife and remembered how much she was admired by other men, how many men would give—whatever men are ready to give—to see her as she was just then. It occurred to him that he would have been rather a fool if he had yielded to his violent impulse and shut her out of the house the previous night.

“You’re never to speak to that cad again,” he said. “D’you hear?”

“Whisper it close in my ear and I’ll try to hear. Your voice is so—what’s your expression—so infernally soft.”

He put his great arm round her.

“D’you hear?”

“I’m trying.”

“I’ll make you.”

Whether Lord Holme succeeded or not, Lady Holme had no opportunity—even if she desired it—of speaking to Rupert Carey for some time. He left London and went up to the North to stay with his mother. The only person he saw before he went was Robin Pierce. He came round to Half Moon Street early on the afternoon of the day after the Arkell House Ball. Robin was at home and Carey walked in with his usual decision. He was very pale, and his face looked very hard. Robin received him coldly and did not ask him to sit down. That was not necessary, of course. But Robin was standing by the door and did not move back into the room.

“I’m going North to-night,” said Carey.

“Are you?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind I’ll sit down.”

Robin said nothing. Carey threw himself into an armchair.

“Going to see the mater. A funny thing—but she’s always glad to see me.”

“Why not?”

“Mothers have a knack that way. Lucky for sons like me.”

There was intense bitterness in his voice, but there was a sound of tenderness too. Robin shut the door but did not sit down.

“Are you going to be in the country long?”

“Don’t know. What time did you leave Arkell House last night?”

“Not till after Lady Holme left.”

“Oh!”

He was silent for a moment, biting his red moustache.

“Were you in the hall after the last lancers?”

“No.”

“You weren’t?”

He spoke quickly, with a sort of relief, hesitated then added sardonically:

“But of course you know—and much worse than the worst. The art of conversation isn’t dead yet, whatever the—perhaps you saw me being got out?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But you do know?”

“Naturally.”

“I say, I wish you’d let me have—”

He checked himself abruptly, and muttered:

“Good God! What a brute I am.”

He sprang up and walked about the room. Presently he stopped in front of the statuette of the “Danseuse de Tunisie.”

“Is it the woman that does it all, or the fan?” he said. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s one, and sometimes the other. Without the fan there’s purity, what’s meant from the beginning—”

“By whom?” said Robin. “I thought you were an atheist?”

“Oh, God! I don’t know what I am.”

He turned away from the statuette.

“With the fan there’s so much more than purity, than what was meant to complete us—as devils—men. But—mothers don’t carry the fan. And I’m going North to-night.”

“Do you mean to say that Lady Holme—?”

Robin’s voice was stern.

“Why did she say that to me?”

“What did she say?”

“That she wished to speak to me, to dance with me.”

“She said that? How can you know?”

“Oh, I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t hear the voice from Eden. Pierce, you know her. She likes you. Tell her to forgive as much as she can. Will you? And tell her not to carry the fan again when fools like me are about.”

And then, without more words, he went out of the room and left Robin standing alone.

Robin looked at the statuette, and remembered what Sir Donald Ulford had said directly he saw it—“Forgive me, that fan makes that statuette wicked.”

“Poor old Carey!” he murmured.

His indignation at Carey’s conduct, which had been hot, had nearly died away.

“If I had told him what she said about him at supper!” he thought.

And then he began to wonder whether Lady Holme had changed her mind on that subject. Surely she must have changed it. But one never knew—with women. He took up his hat and gloves and went out. If Lady Holme was in he meant to give her Carey’s message. It was impossible to be jealous of Carey now.

Lady Holme was not in.

As Robin walked away from Cadogan Square he was not sure whether he was glad or sorry that he had not been able to see her.

After his cup of early morning tea Lord Holme had seemed to be “dear old Fritz” again, and Lady Holme felt satisfied with herself despite the wagging tongues of London. She knew she had done an incautious thing. She knew, too, that Carey had failed her. Her impulse had been to use him as a weapon. He had proved a broken reed. And this failure on his part was likely to correct for ever her incautious tendencies. That was what she told herself, with some contempt for men. She did not tell herself that the use to which she had intended to put Carey was an unworthy one. Women as beautiful, and as successful in their beauty, as she was seldom tell themselves these medicinal truths.

She went about as usual, and on several occasions took Lord Holme with her. And though she saw a light of curiosity in many eyes, and saw lips almost forced open by the silent questions lurking within many minds, it was as she had said it would be. The immediate future had been in Fritz’s hands, and he had made it safe enough.

He had made it safe. Even the Duchess of Arkell was quite charming, and laid the whole burden of blame—where it always ought to be laid, of course—upon the man’s shoulders. Rupert Carey was quite done for socially. Everyone said so. Even Upper Bohemia thought blatant intemperance—in a Duke’s house—an unnecessary defiance flung at the Blue Ribbon Army. Only Amalia Wolfstein, who had never succeeded in getting an invitation to Arkell House, remarked that “It was probably the champagne’s fault. She had always noticed that where the host and hostess were dry the champagne was apt to be sweet.”

Yes, Fritz had made it safe, but:

Circumstances presently woke in Lady Holme’s mind a rather disagreeable suspicion that though Fritz had “come round” with such an admirable promptitude he had reserved to himself a right to retaliate, that he perhaps presumed to fancy that her defiant action, and its very public and unpleasant result, gave to him a greater license than he had possessed before.

Some days after the early morning tea Lord Holme said to his wife:

“I say, Vi, we’ve got nothing on the first, have we?”

There was a perceptible pause before she replied.

“Yes, we have. We’ve accepted a dinner at Brayley House.”

Lord Holme looked exceedingly put out.

“Brayley House. What rot!” he exclaimed. “I hate those hind-leg affairs. Why on earth did you accept it?”

“Dear boy, you told me to. But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so anxious to be free for the first?”

“Well, it’s Miss Schley’s debut at the British. Everyone’s goin’ and Laycock says—”

“I’m not very interested in Mr. Laycock’s aphorisms, Fritz. I prefer yours, I truly do.”

“Oh, well, I’m as good as Laycock, I know. Still—”

“You’re a thousand times better. And so everybody’s going, on Miss Schley’s first night? I only wish we could, but we can’t. Let’s put up with number two. We’re free on the second.”

Lord Holme did not look at all appeased.

“That’s not the same thing,” he said.

“What’s the difference? She doesn’t change the play, I suppose?”

“No. But naturally on the first night she wants all her friends to come up to the scratch, muster round—don’t you know?—and give her a hand.”

“And she thinks your hand, being enormous, would be valuable? But we can’t throw over Brayley House.”

Lord Holme’s square jaw began to work, a sure sign of acute irritation.

“If there’s a dull, dreary house in London, it’s Brayley House,” he grumbled. “The cookin’s awful—poison—and the wine’s worse. Why, last time Laycock was there they actually gave him—”

“Poor dear Mr. Laycock! Did they really? But what can we do? I’m sure I don’t want to be poisoned either. I love life.”

She was looking brilliant. Lord Holme began to straddle his legs.

“And there’s the box!” he said. “A box next the stage that holds six in a row can’t stand empty on a first night, eh? It’d throw a damper on the whole house.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. What box?”

“Hang it all!—ours.”

“I didn’t know we had a box for this important social function.”

Lady Holme really made a great effort to keep the ice out of her voice, but one or two fragments floated in nevertheless.

“Well, I tell you I’ve taken a box and asked Laycock—”

The reiterated mention of this hallowed name was a little too much for Lady Holme’s equanimity.

“If Mr. Laycock’s going the box won’t be empty. So that’s all right,” she rejoined. “Mr. Laycock will make enough noise to give the critics a lead. And I suppose that’s all Miss Schley wants.”

“But it isn’t!” said Lord Holme, violently letting himself down at the knees and shooting himself up again.

“What does she want?”

“She wants you to be there.”

“Me! Why?”

“Because she’s taken a deuce of a fancy to you.”

“Really!”

An iceberg had entered the voice now.

“Yes, thinks you the smartest woman in London, and all that. So you are.”

“I’m very sorry, but even the smartest woman in London can’t throw over the Brayley’s. Take another box for the second.”

Lord Holme looked fearfully sulky and lounged out of the room.

On the following morning he strode into Lady Holme’s boudoir about twelve with a radiant face.

“It’s all right!” he exclaimed. “Talk of diplomatists! I ought to be an ambassador.”

He flung himself into a chair, grinning with satisfaction like a schoolboy.

“What is it?” asked Lady Holme, looking up from her writing-table.

“I’ve been to Lady Brayley, explained the whole thing, and got us both off. After all, she was a friend of my mother’s, and knew me in kilts and all that, so she ought to be ready to do me a favour. She looked a bit grim, but she’s done it. You’ve—only got to tip her a note of thanks.”

“You’re mad then, Fritz!”

Lady Holme stood up suddenly.

“Never saner.”

He put one hand into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out an envelope.

“Here’s what she says to you.”

Lady Holme tore the note open.

            “BRAYLEY HOUSE, W.

  “DEAR VIOLA,—Holme tells me you made a mistake when you accepted
  my invitation for the first, and that you have long been pledged
  to be present on that date at some theatrical performance or other.
  I am sorry I did not know sooner, but of course I release you with
  pleasure from your engagement with me, and I have already filled up
  your places.—Believe me, yours always sincerely,

            “MARTHA BRAYLEY.”
 

Lady Holme read this note carefully, folded it up, laid it quietly on the writing-table and repeated:

“You’re mad, Fritz.”

“What d’you mean—mad?”

“You’ve made Martha Brayley my enemy for life.”

“Rubbish!”

“I beg your pardon. And for—for—”

She stopped. It was wiser not to go on. Perhaps her face spoke for her, even to so dull an observer as Lord Holme, for he suddenly said, with a complete change of tone:

“I forgave you about Carey.”

“Oh, I see! You want a quid pro quo. Thank you, Fritz.”

“Don’t forget to tip Lady Brayley a note of thanks,” he said rather loudly, getting up from his chair.

“Oh, thanks! You certainly ought to be an ambassador—at the court of some savage monarch.”

He said nothing, but walked out of the room whistling the refrain about Ina.

When he had gone Lady Holme sat down and wrote two notes. One was to Lady Brayley and was charmingly apologetic, saying that the confusion was entirely owing to Fritz’s muddle-headedness, and that she was in despair at her misfortune—which was almost literally true. The other was to Sir Donald Ulford, begging him to join them in their box on the first, and asking whether it was possible to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Leo Ulford to come with him. If he thought so she would go at once and leave cards on Mrs. Ulford, whom she was longing to know.

Both notes went off by hand before lunch.