Viviette

Chapter III

Katherine

The drive was a memorable one for many reasons. First the new mare flew along at an exhilarating trot, as if showing off her qualities to her new masters. Then the morning sunshine flooded the soft, undulating Warwickshire country, and slanted freshly through the bordering elms in sweet-scented lanes. Summer flaunted its irresponsible youth in the faces of matronly, red-brick Manor House, old grey church, and crumbling cottage, danced about among the crisp green leaves, kissed the wayside flowers, and tossing up human hearts in sheer gaiety, played the very deuce with them. The drive also had its altruistic side. They were on an errand of benevolence. Austin, his mind conscious of nothing but right, felt the unusual glow of unselfish devotion to another's interests. When he had awakened that morning he had had misgivings as to the advisability of sending Dick to another hemisphere. After all, Dick was exceedingly useful at Ware House, and saved him a great deal of trouble. An agent would have to be appointed to replace him, whose salary--not a very large one, in view of the duties to be performed, but still a salary--would have to be provided out of his, Austin's, pocket. Who, again, could undertake the permanent care of his mother? Viviette would stay at home for some little time; but she would be marrying one of these fine days--a day which Austin had reasons for hoping would not be very remote. He would have to make Heaven knows what arrangements for Mrs. Ware and the general upkeep of the Manor House, while he was in London carrying on his profession. Decidedly, Dick had been a godsend, and his absence would be a calamity. In sending him out to Vancouver Austin had all the unalloyed, pure pleasure of self-sacrifice.

They talked of Dick and Dick's birthday and Dick's happiness most of the way to Witherby. The telegram despatched, prepaid with the porterage by Viviette, Austin felt that he had done his duty by his brother, and deserved some consideration on his own account. And here it was that the summer began its game with their hearts. On such sportive occasions it is not so much what is said that matters. A conversation that might be entirely conventional between comparative strangers in a fog may become the most romantic interchange of sentiment imaginable between intimates in the sunshine. There are tones, there are glances, there are half-veiled allusions, there are--in a dog-cart, especially when it jolts--thrilling contacts of arm and arm. There is man's undisguised tribute to beauty; there is beauty's keen feminine appreciation of the tribute. There is a manner of saying "we" which counts for more than the casual conjunction of the personalities.

"This is _our_ day, Viviette," said Austin. "I shall always remember it."

"So shall I. We must put a white mark against it in our diaries."

"With white ink?"

"Of course. Black would never do, nor red, nor violet."

"But where shall we get it?"

"I'll make us some when I get home out of white cloud and lilies and sunshine and a bit of the blue sky."

Laughter fluttered through her veins. Yesterday she had teasingly boasted to Katherine that Austin was in love with her. Now she knew it. He proclaimed it in a thousand ways. A note of exultation in his laugh, like that in a blackbird's call, alone proclaimed it. Instinct told her of harmless words she might use which would bring the plain avowal. But the hour was too delicate. As yet nothing was demanded. All was given. Her woman's vanity blossomed deliciously in the atmosphere of a man's love. Her heart had not yet received the inevitable summons to respond. She left it, careless in the gay hands of summer.

When they drew up before the front door of Ware House he lifted her from the dog-cart and set her laughing on her feet.

"How strong you are," she cried.

"I'm not a giant, like Dick," said he, "but I'm strong enough to do what I like with a bit of a thing like you."

She entered the hall and glanced at him provokingly over her shoulder.

"Don't be too sure of that."

"Whatever I like," he repeated, striding towards her.

But Viviette laughed, and fled lightly up the stairs, and on the landing blew him an ironical kiss from her finger tips.

When Viviette came down for lunch, she found Dick awaiting her in the hall. With a lowering face he watched her descend and, his hand on the newel, confronted her.

"Well?" said he indignantly.

"Well?" she said, cheerfully smiling.

"What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Lots of things. I had a lovely drive. I got through all my business, and I have a beautiful appetite. I also don't like standing on a stair."

At her look he drew aside and let her pass into the hall.

"You promised to drive with me," he said, following her to a chair in which she sat. "Driving with me is no great catch, perhaps; but a promise is a promise."

"You were late," said Viviette.

"My mother kept me--some silly nonsense about vegetables. You must have known it was something I couldn't help."

"I really don't see why you're so angry, Dick," she said, lifting candid eyes. "I explained why we had gone in my note."

"I didn't read the note," said Dick wrath-fully. "A thousand notes couldn't have explained it. I tore the note into little pieces."

Viviette rose. "If that's the way you treat me," she said, piqued, "I have nothing more to say to you."

"It's the way you're treating me," he cried, with a clumsy man's awkward attempt at gesture. "I know I'm not clever. I know I can't talk to you as sweetly as other people; but I'm not a dog, and I deserve some consideration. Perhaps, after all, I might have the brains to jest and toss about words and shoot off epigrams. I'll try, if you like. Let us see. Here. A man who entrusts his heart to a woman has a jade for his banker. That's devilish smart, isn't it. Now then--there must be some repartee to it. What is it?"

Viviette looked at him proudly, and moving in the direction of the morning-room door, said with much dignity:

"That depends on the way in which the woman you are talking to has been brought up. My repartee is--good morning."

Dick, suddenly repentant, checked her.

"No, Viviette. Don't go. I'm a brute and a fool. I didn't mean it. Forgive me. I would rather go on the rack than hurt your little finger. But it maddens me--can't you believe it? It maddens me to see Austin--"

She broke into a little laugh and smiled dazzlingly on him.

"I do believe you're jealous!" she interrupted.

"Good heavens!" he cried passionately. "Haven't I cause? Austin has everything his heart can desire. He has always had it. I have nothing--nothing but one little girl I love. Austin, with all the world at his feet, comes down here, and what chance has a rough yokel like me against Austin? My God! It's the one ewe lamb."

He raised his clenched fists and brought them down against his sides and turned away. The allusion and a consciousness of Vancouver brought a smile into Viviette's eyes. She had a woman's sense of humour, which is not always urbane. When he turned to meet her she shook her head reprovingly.

"And David put Uriah into the forefront of the battle, and carried off poor little Bathsheba. No one seemed to have concerned himself with what Bathsheba thought of it all. Don't you consider she ought to have some choice in the matter--whether she should follow the sprightly David or cling to the melancholy Uriah?"

"Oh, don't jest like that, Viviette," he cried. "It hurts!"

"I'm sorry, Dick," she said innocently. "But, really, Bathsheba has her feelings. What am I to do?"

"Choose, dear, between us. Choose now--in Heaven's name, choose."

"But, Dick, dear," said Viviette, all that was wickedly feminine in her shouting her sex's triumph song, "I want a longer time to choose between two hats!"

Dick stamped his foot. "Then Austin has been robbing me! I'm growing desperate, Viviette, tell me now. Choose."

He seized her arms in his strong hands. She felt a delicious little thrill of fear. But knowing her strength, she looked up at him with a childish expression and said plaintively: "Oh, Dick, dear, I'm so hungry."

He released her arms. She rubbed them ruefully. "I'm sure you've made horrid red rings. Fancy choosing a hard, uncomfortable hat like that!"

He was about to make some rejoinder when the presence of Mrs. Ware and Katherine Holroyd at the top of the stairs put an end to the encounter. The victory, such as it was, remained with Viviette.

At lunch, Austin, his veins still tingling with the summer, laughed and jested light-heartedly. What a joy it was to get away from stuffy courts of justice into the pure Warwickshire air. What a joy to drink of the wine of life. What was that? Only those that drank of the wine could tell.

"What about the poor devils that only get the dregs?" muttered Dick.

Austin declared that the real wine had no dregs. He called his mother and Katherine Holroyd to witness. Mrs. Ware was not sure. Old port had to be very carefully decanted. Did he remember the fuss his dear father used to make about it? She was very glad there was no more left--for Dick would be sure to drink it and it would go to his head.

"Or his toes!" cried Viviette.

When Austin explained Viviette's meaning to his mother, who had not an allusive habit of mind, she acquiesced placidly. Port was not good for gouty people. Their poor father suffered severely. Austin listened to her reminiscences and turned the talk to the drive. It had been more like driving through Paradise with Pegasus harnessed to Venus's car than anything else. He must take his mother out and show her what a good judge of horseflesh was dear old Dick.

"As she's my mare, perhaps I might have the privilege," said Dick.

Austin cried out, in all good faith: "My dear old boy, is there anything especially mine or yours in this house?"

Katherine, a keen observer, broke quickly into the talk.

"There's Dick's armoury. That's his own particular and private domain. You're going to explain it all to me this afternoon, aren't you? You promised yesterday."

She drew Dick into talk away from the others. The lecture on the armoury was fixed for three o'clock, when she would be free from the duty from which, during her stay at the Manor House, she had freed Viviette, of postprandial reading of the newspaper to Mrs. Ware. But her interest in his hobby for once failed to awaken his enthusiasm. The dull jealousy of Austin, against which his honest soul had struggled successfully all his life long, had passed beyond his control. These few days of Austin's Whitsun visit had changed his cosmic view. Petty rebuffs, such as the matters of the stables and the Rural District Council, which formerly he would have regarded in the twilight of his mind as part of the unchangeable order of things in which Austin was destined to shine resplendently and he to glimmer--Austin the arc-lamp and he the tallow-dip--became magnified into grievances and insults intolerable. Esau could not have raged more against Jacob, the supplanter, than did Dick, when Austin carried off Viviette from beneath his nose. Until this visit of Austin he had no idea that he would find a rival in his brother. The discovery was a shock, causing his world to reel and setting free all the pent-up jealousies and grievances of a lifetime. Everything he had given up to Austin, if not willingly, at least graciously, hiding beneath the rough, tanned hide of his homely face all pain, disappointment, and humiliation. But now Austin had come and swooped off with his one ewe lamb. Not that Viviette had encouraged him by more than the real but mocking affection with which she had treated her bear foster-brother ever since her elfin childhood. In a dim way he realised this, and absolved her from blame. Less dimly, also, he felt his mental and social inferiority, his lack of warrant in offering her marriage. But his great, rugged manhood wanted her, the woman, with an imperious, savage need which took all the training of civilisation to repress. Viviette alone in her maidenly splendour, he could have fought it down. But the vision of another man entering, light-hearted and debonair, into those precincts maddened him, let loose primitive instincts of hatred and revenge, and robbed him of all interest in the toys with which men used to slay each other centuries ago.

Austin, being nearest the door, opened it for the ladies to pass out. Viviette, going out last, looked up at him with one of her witch's glances.

"Don't be very long," she said,

Before Austin could resume his seat Dick leaped up.

"Austin, look here; I've something to say to you."

"Well?" said Austin.

Dick pulled out a cigar, bit the end off, and finding that he had ripped the outer skin, threw it angrily into the fireplace.

"My dear old boy," said Austin, "what in the name of all that's neurotic is the matter?"

"I've something to say to you," Dick repeated. "Something that concerns myself, my life. I must throw myself on your generosity."

Austin, his head full of philanthropy, thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled indulgently on Dick.

"Don't, old chap, I know all about it. Viviette has told me everything."

Dick, his head full of passion, staggered in amazement.

"Viviette has told you?"

"Of course; why shouldn't she?"

Dick groped his way to the door. It were better for both that he should not stay. Austin, left alone, laughed, not unkindly. Dear old Dick! It was a shame to tease him--but what a different expression his honest face would wear to-morrow! When the maid brought in his coffee he sipped it with enjoyment, forgetful for once of its lack of excellence.

There was one person, however, in the house who saw things clearly; and the more clearly she saw them the less did they seem satisfactorily ordered. This was Katherine Holroyd, a sympathetic observer and everybody's intimate. She had known the family since her childhood, spent in a great neighbouring house which had now long since passed from her kin into alien hands. She had known Viviette when she first came, with her changeling face, a toddling child of three, to the Manor House. She had grown up with the brothers. Until her marriage the place had been her second home. Her married life, mostly spent abroad, had somewhat broken the intimacy. But her widowhood after the first few hopeless months had renewed it, although her visits were comparatively rare. On the other hand, her little daintily-furnished London house in Victoria square was always open to such of the family as happened to be in town. Now, as Austin was the most frequently in town, seeing that he lived there all the year round, with the exception of the long vacation and odd flying visits to Warwickshire, to Austin was her door most frequently open. A deep affection existed between them, deeper perhaps than either realised. To be purely brotherly in attitude towards a woman whom you are fond of and who is not your sister, and to be purely sisterly in your attitude towards a man whom you are fond of and who is not your brother, are ideals of spiritual emotion very difficult to attain in this respectably organised but sex-ridden world.

During the dark time of her early widowhood it was to Austin's delicate tact and loyalty that she owed her first weak grasp on life. It was he that had brought her to a sense of outer things, to a realisation that in spite of her own grey sky there was still a glory on the earth. He was her trusted friend, ally, and adviser, who never failed her, and she contemplated him always with a heart full of somewhat exaggerated gratitude--which is as far on the road to love as it is given to many women to travel.

She had barely reached the top of the hall stairs--on her way to spend her reading hour with Mrs. Ware, when she saw Dick come out of the dining-room with convulsed and angry face, the veins standing out on his thick bull's neck. She felt frightened. Something foolish and desperate would happen before long. She resolved to give Austin a warning word. With an excuse to Mrs. Ware she went down again to the dining-room, and found Austin in the cosiest and sunniest frame of mind imaginable. Obviously there had been no serious quarrel between the brothers.

"Can I have a few minutes with you, Austin?"

"A thousand," he said gaily. "What has gone wrong?"

"It is nothing to do with me," she said.

He looked amusedly into her eyes. "I know. It's about Viviette. Confess."

"Yes," she replied soberly, "it's about Viviette."

"You've seen it. I make no bones about it. You can believe the very worst. I have fallen utterly and hopelessly in love with her. I am at your mercy."

This beginning was not quite what Katherine had expected. In his confident way he had taken matters out of her hands. She had not anticipated a down-right confession. She felt conscious of a little dull and wholly reprehensible ache at her heart. She sighed.

"Aren't you pleased, Katherine?" he asked with a man's selfishness.

"I suppose I must be--for your sake. But I must also sigh a little. I knew you would be falling in love sooner or later--only I hoped it would be later. But _que veux-tu?_ It is the doom of all such friendships."

"I don't see anything like a doom about it, my dear," said he. "The friendship will continue. Viviette loves you dearly."

She took up a peach from a dish to her hand, regarded it for a moment, absent-mindedly, and delicately replaced it.

"Our friendship will continue, of course. But the particular essence of it, the little sentimentality of ownership, will be gone, won't it?"

Austin rose and bent over Katherine's chair in some concern. "You're not distressed, Katherine?"

"Oh, no. You have been such a kind, loyal friend to me during a very dark and lonely time--brought sunshine into my life when I needed it most--that I should be a wicked woman if I didn't rejoice at your happiness. And we have been nothing more than friends."

"Nothing more," said Austin.

She was smiling now, and he caught a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"And yet there was an afternoon last winter--"

His face coloured. "Don't throw my wickedness in my face. I remember that afternoon. I came in fagged, with the prospect of dinner at the club and a dismal evening over a brief in front of me, and found you sitting before the fire, the picture of rest and comfortableness and companionship. I think it was the homely smell of hot buttered toast that did it. I nearly asked you to marry me."

"And I had been feeling particularly lonely," she laughed.

"Would you have accepted me?"

"Do you think that it is quite a fair question?"

"We have always been frank with one another since our childhood," said he.

She smiled. "Has Viviette accepted you?"

He broke away from her with a gay laugh, and lit a cigarette.

"Your feminine subtlety does you credit, Katherine."

"But has she?"

"Well, no--not exactly."

"Will she?"

He brought his hand down on the table. "By heavens, I'll make her! I've got most of the things I've wanted during my life, and it'll be odd if I don't get the thing I want more than all the rest put together. Now answer my question, my dear Katherine," he continued teasingly. "Would you have married me?"

The smile faded from Katherine's face. She could not parry the question as she had done before, and it probed depths. She said very seriously and sweetly:

"I should have done, Austin, as I always shall do, whatever you ask me to do. I'm glad you didn't ask me--very glad--for the love a woman gives a man died within me, you know."

He took her hand and kissed it.

"My dear," said he, "you are the truest friend that ever man had."

There was a short pause. Austin looked out of the window and Katherine wiped away some moisture in her eyes. This scene of sentimentality was not at all what she had come for. Soon she rose with a determined air and joined Austin by the window.

"It was as a true friend that I wanted to speak to you to-day. To warn you."

"About what?"

"About Dick. Austin, he's madly in love with Viviette too."

Austin stared at her for a moment incredulously. "Dick in love--in love with Viviette?" Then he broke into a peal of laughter. "My _dear_ Katherine! Why, it's absurd! It's preposterous! It's too funny."

"But seriously, Austin."

"But seriously," he said, with laughing eyes, "such an idea has never penetrated into old Dick's wooden skull. You dear women are always making up romance. He and Viviette are on the same old fairy and great brown bear terms that they have been ever since they first met. She makes him dance on his hind legs--he wants to hug her--she hits him over the nose--and he growls."

"I warn you," said Katherine. "Great brown bears in love are dangerous."

"But he isn't in love," he argued light-heartedly. "If he were he would want to stay with Viviette. But he's eating his heart out, apparently, to leave us all and go and plough fields and herd cattle abroad. The life he lives here, my good mother's somewhat arbitrary ways, and one thing and another have at last got on his nerves. I wonder now how the dear old chap has stood it so long. That's what is wrong with him, not blighted affection."

"I can only tell you what I know," said Katherine. "If you won't believe me, it's not my fault. Keep your eyes open and you will see."

"And you keep your eyes open to-morrow morning and _you_ will see," he said, with his bright self-confidence.

So Katherine sighed at the obtuseness and inconvincibility of man and went to read the leader in _The Daily Telegraph_ to Mrs. Ware. Austin, with a smile on his lips, wandered out into the sunshine in search of Viviette.

Before they parted, however, Katherine turned by the door.

"Are you coming to the armoury to hear Dick's lecture?"

"Of course," said Austin gaily. "The dear old chap loves an audience."