Will O’ the Wisp Read online

  Miss Editha’s embrace engulfed her.

  “Dear Eleanor!”—three rapid kisses—“My dearest girl, how delightful to see you again! But I mustn’t keep you—no, not a moment—Grandmamma first. And—yes, just one word with Aunt Mary. Mary, dearest, isn’t this delightful? But we mustn’t keep her.”

  “I’ll come back.”

  David caught the deep, grave tone. Eleanor’s voice at least had not altered. It gave him an odd sensation.

  “Grandmamma”—this was Miss Editha again—“isn’t this too delightful? Here’s Eleanor.”

  “H’m,” said Mrs. Fordyce.

  Her hands, with the rings all crooked, were lying on the arms of her padded chair. It was upholstered in dark maroon; the deep colour made her hands look very white, the veins on them dark and knotted. She lifted the right hand now, touched Eleanor’s glove with it, and gave her a little push.

  “Scent!” she said. “Out!”

  She withdrew the hand, covered her mouth with it, and coughed.

  “Mary—” She coughed again.

  Eleanor stood before her, still smiling but a little bewildered.

  “It’s my flowers, Grandmamma—my violets. Don’t you like violets?”

  “Grandmamma doesn’t care for flowers,” murmured Miss Mary.

  “Scent!” said Grandmamma, and coughed again.

  A shocked Miss Editha took Eleanor by the arm.

  “My dearest girl! Had you forgotten? Grandmamma can’t endure flowers—not scented ones. We never have them. Are they fastened with a pin?” Her fingers moved about the bunch. “My dear, perhaps if you—I don’t seem to—oh, my dear, take them off quickly!”

  Eleanor unfastened the diamond arrow which held her violets. With the bunch in her hand, she looked at David. There was a little colour in her cheeks, and a hint of laughter in her eyes.

  He came out of his corner.

  “How d’you do, Eleanor?” he said; and Grandmamma stopped coughing.

  An interested Family gave them its whole attention.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Eleanor. “I’d forgotten.” She spoke to Mrs. Fordyce. “David will take them away. I’m so sorry I forgot—it was stupid of me.”

  She put the violets into David’s hand. He touched her glove, and violet leaves, and stalks just faintly damp. And then she was kissing Grandmamma, and Miss Editha was sighing with relief.

  The violets smelt very sweet.

  CHAPTER III

  A little gilt chair, very upright in the back and rather narrow in the seat, stood in the corner between Grandmamma’s chair and the fire. When Mrs. Fordyce singled out one of the Family for conversation, Miss Mary would indicate this fragile seat. When Mrs. Fordyce had had enough of anyone’s society, she had only to glance at her daughter, and Miss Mary would murmur in her little mousey voice: “I think, dear, if you don’t mind, perhaps Grandmamma has talked enough.”

  Eleanor was sitting on the little gilt chair when David came back into the room after leaving the violets in the hall. He came across to his old corner and stood there propped against the wall. He could see Mrs. Fordyce in profile, and he could see Eleanor.

  She was much more graceful than Eleanor Fordyce had been. Her black was black velvet—a coat and skirt; the coat open to show something white and the sparkle of a diamond brooch. She leaned forward a little and spoke low. But, low as she spoke, David found himself hearing what she said. Grandmamma was putting her through a catechism.

  “I thought he died in the spring. I believe Editha told me that your husband died in the spring.”

  Then Eleanor’s answer:

  “No, it was December—December last year.”

  Mrs. Fordyce looked with intention at the little twinkling diamond brooch.

  “I’m sure Editha told me it was the spring, and that you didn’t come home at once on account of the heat.”

  “No, Grandmamma, it was December.”

  “Then why didn’t you come home?” Mrs. Fordyce’s fingers tapped impatiently on the padded arm of her chair.

  “I stayed to settle things up, and then to pay some visits. And then I went into Kashmir with a friend. I had always wanted to go.”

  Mrs. Fordyce coughed dryly.

  “Mourning used to be a time for seclusion,” she said. “Times change.” She coughed again, “Weeds for a year, and black for a year, and half-mourning for another year, was the least that was expected of a widow—the very least. I remember very well that I decided to drop Marion Craddock’s acquaintance when I saw her wearing jet wheat-ears in her bonnet eighteen months after George Craddock’s death.” She looked again at the twinkling brooch.

  “Mourning is just a fashion. Don’t you think so, Grandmamma? One does what other people do, but it doesn’t make any difference to what one feels.”

  “Ah!” said Mrs. Fordyce. “That’s the modern way of talking. It’s very convenient, my dear—h’m—no doubt.” She put up her hand and coughed again. “You’ve all got such deep feelings that you don’t require what used to be considered decent observance. H’m—no—that’s not required. But there’s this to be said for the old way: all the world can see a black dress. They can’t see your thoughts, and I’d be very greatly surprised if you’d want them to.”

  Eleanor’s colour rose in the bright carnation of her girlhood, and Mrs. Fordyce gave an odd short laugh.

  “So you went into Kashmir? I used to read ‘Lalla Rookh.’ And your father—yes, it was your father—he had a nice tenor voice when he was a young man, and your mother played his accompaniments. He was very fond of that song about Kashmir in the days when everyone spelt it with a C, and we called our shawls Cashmeres, even when they came from Paris. The Empress Eugénie set the fashion—no, it was Queen Victoria who always gave one as a wedding present.” She drummed with her fingers and hummed in a deep, cracked whisper: “‘I’ll sing thee songs of Araby, and tales of fair Cashmere.’ And now, I suppose, you’re going to settle down. How many years were you in India?”

  “Six years.” The words fell as something falls from a tired hand.

  “It’s a long time to be out of your own country. You weren’t in a hurry to get back. You’ve been staying in Paris, haven’t you?”

  “In Florence first, with Amy Barton, and then with an old schoolfellow in Paris. She’s an artist.”

  “You’d better settle down. You’re not left badly off?”

  Eleanor’s colour ebbed.

  “No.”

  “That’s something. You must settle down. You will find some changes. Perhaps you’ll like them. Most people seem to like change nowadays. I can’t say I care for it myself.” She paused, and added dryly: “Frank Alderey’s married.”

  “Yes, I want to meet her.”

  “H’m! There’s not so very much of her to meet. Her clothes oughtn’t to cost Frank much; hut it seems the less stuff there is in a thing, the more you pay for it. H’m!” Her tone became drier still. “David isn’t married. It’s time he was thinking about it. The longer people wait, the worse fools they make of themselves as a rule. Of course, he has his affairs”—there was a little scornful glitter in the hard blue eyes—“but they don’t come to anything. Two years ago, now, there was a friend of Betty’s—a good-looking girl, rather like you, my dear, before you lost your colour. H’m! I can’t say India’s improved you.” She gave the little short laugh which was so like a cough, and flicked at her nose with six inches of point-de-Venise set round a bit of lawn the size of a half-crown. “Well, it didn’t come to anything—it never seems to come to anything with David. And there was a girl with red hair before that—red hair and a temper, if I’m not very much mistaken. That didn’t come to anything either. I suppose there’s some entanglement.”

  Eleanor refused the challenge. She sat with her gloved hands upon her knees; they clasped one another lightly. Mrs. Fordyce looked at them. She always looked at a victim’s hands. She had, before now, found them betray what eyes and mouth kept hidden. Eleanor’s han
ds told her nothing; Eleanor’s face, quiet, smiling, and a little sad, told her nothing either. She put up her hand with the crowded, crooked rings and yawned.

  Miss Mary was at Eleanor’s side in a moment.

  “I think, my dear, if you don’t mind, perhaps Grandmamma has talked enough.”

  Eleanor stood up thankfully. That scorching fire at her back, and Grandmamma’s relentless eyes on her face—she couldn’t have stood a great deal more. As she moved to speak to Milly March, she heard Miss Mary summoned in a voice which held no hint of fatigue:

  “Mary! Where’s David? I want to speak to David.”

  David looked at the gimcrack gilt chair.

  “What happens if I break it?”

  “You won’t—it’s stronger than it looks. Sit down.” Mrs. Fordyce used a sharp, commanding undertone.

  David sat down. He was wondering why no one had ever told Grandmamma what a rude old woman she was. It would have given him the greatest pleasure to tell her, in a perfectly frank heart-to-heart conversation, just what he thought about the way in which she had been talking to Eleanor. It was the limit, the absolute outside limit.

  At this point he became aware that he was providing Grandmamma with amusement. She smiled a wintry smile that showed the famous teeth.

  “I’ve been talking to Eleanor,” she said.

  “Yes. I saw you.”

  “Perhaps you heard me.” There was a little icy sparkle in the pale blue eyes. “Perhaps you heard me, David. H’m! Listeners never hear any good of themselves. I was saying it was high time you were married.”

  David’s frown vanished. Grandmamma generally enraged him; but occasionally she amused him too. The fact that she persisted in regarding him as a Lothario generally amused him.

  “That’s what Betty says. Whom shall I marry?”

  Mrs. Fordyce sniffed. A counter-attack always disconcerted her. She had hoped to see David in a black fury, but obliged to be polite because she was Grandmamma and this was her eighty-ninth birthday. She lifted her left hand from its dark maroon background and tapped David on the knee.

  “I was serious.”

  David’s look was gay and challenging.

  “Of course. Match-making is a very serious business. Who is it to be?”

  Mrs. Fordyce knew when she held losing cards. She leaned back in her chair and just closed her eyes for a moment. If David had been six years old, she would have slapped him as hard as she could. A grandson of twenty-eight cannot be slapped; but he can be presented with a touching picture of an old lady of eighty-nine whose affectionate solicitude he has rebuffed. She closed her eyes, sighed, put the point-de-Venise to her lips for a moment, and then said, with an effect of vagueness:

  “Ah—yes—what were we talking about? Dear Eleanor, I think.”

  David said nothing. He was trying not to feel a brute.

  “Yes—Eleanor,” said Grandmamma, a little more briskly this time. “H’m—yes—she’s back. Looks shocking. Have you seen her?”

  “Just for a moment.”

  “Looks shocking—doesn’t she? Quite lost her complexion—India, I suppose, or Cosmo Rayne. He’s no great loss, according to all accounts, but I suppose she was in love with him. Someone said he beat her. H’m—well, there are worse things than beating. Pity she’s lost her looks so! H’m—what do you think?”

  “I don’t think out of office hours. Hullo! Who’s that?”

  Mrs. Fordyce turned slowly. A red-faced man had just come in, and behind him a slip of a girl.

  “George March,” said Mrs. Fordyce impatiently. “Yes, just retired. He’s been Commissioner at one of those places that end in ’bad—Mirabad—Morabad—h’m—I can’t remember. His wife ran away. The daughter’s a handful, I should say. Her name’s Flora, and they call her Folly—Folly!”

  She laughed on a sharp, satirical note, and a moment later just touched George March’s hand and said, “How d’ye do, George?” in her least interested voice.

  “Glad to see you looking so well,” said George March heartily.

  Folly stood behind him, waiting for her turn. A high-crowned vagabond hat with a wavy brim hid every vestige of hair. Under it her little round head was black and sleek as a seal’s, hair cropped close as could be. The hat was red—not the dark, serious red smiled upon by fashion, but a full, bright scarlet. Jumper and skirt were the same colour, and she carried a scarlet leather bag that was nearly as large as herself.

  When she tilted her head and looked at David, he saw a little round face whose skin had been creamed and powdered to an ivory tint unbroken except by the vivid scarlet of lips that were painted to match the scarlet bag. She tilted her head a little more, and David saw that her eyes were green and impudent. If she had suddenly put out her tongue at him, he would not have been in the least surprised—a little, pointed scarlet tongue—a little serpent’s tongue. He concluded that his Cousin Folly was likely to make the Family sit up.

  “Very glad indeed to see you looking so well,” said George March.

  “Thank you, George,” said Mrs. Fordyce. “How do you do, Flora?”

  “How do you do, Aunt Anna?” said Miss Folly March. She had a little, soft, purring voice. She put her hand into Grandmamma’s with the prettiest grace in the world.

  Grandmamma dropped the hand without further speech. Miss Folly followed her father across the room.

  Mrs. Fordyce gave her dry cough.

  “Her mother ran away with an Australian. I dare say he deserved it. George was well rid of her. None of you young people seem to have much luck with your marriages. H’m! Do you? George—Betty—Eleanor. H’m! No, not much luck! We managed these things better in my generation—h’m—a great deal better!”

  For one cold moment David had wondered if his name was going to follow Eleanor’s; there had been just the ghost of a pause whilst Grandmamma’s malicious eyes had raked him. He didn’t think she had got much for her pains. But with Grandmamma one could never be sure.

  “Eleanor’s better off than Betty,” pursued Mrs. Fordyce. “George and Eleanor are both better off. George has divorced his mistake, and Eleanor’s buried hers. You—”

  David wasn’t sure whether he jumped or not. There was an imperceptible pause and a little rattling laugh.

  “You haven’t made yours yet. Betty’s the worst off of the lot of you. I never did like Francis Lester. But of course Betty would have him. And what’s she got out of it? A clumping boy to bring up, and a husband whom she won’t divorce, and who hasn’t the common decency to leave her a widow.”

  David had heard all this so many times before that he allowed his attention to wander. Mrs. Fordyce had a pointed prickle ready for him:

  “I’ve kept you long enough. I’ve talked long enough too. Go and make it up with Eleanor if you want to. I dare say she’ll be very pleased.” She dabbed at her chin with the yellow lace hand-kerchief and leaned back.

  Miss Mary stole from behind her chair.

  “What is it, dear?”

  “I’ve talked enough.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  She came to David with her little mouse-like run.

  “David, I think Grandmamma is just a little tired—if you don’t mind.”

  David went across to where Folly March was standing listening to the three Alderey girls, who were all talking at once. They greeted David with little shrieks of “Make him guess!”; “No, I can’t!”; “Yes, do!”; and “Oh, nonsense!”

  “What am I to guess?” said David.

  “Winnie—” said the youngest Alderey girl.

  “Pobbles, you’re not to! It wasn’t me; it was Minnie.”

  “David, don’t listen to them!”

  David felt reasonably bored. He frowned, and saw a green glint between Folly’s eyelashes. They were very black eyelashes. An imp—a whole impery of imps—undoubtedly lived behind them; and all the time the creature had a little round ivory face and a painted scarlet mouth as expressionless as one of those little ivory faces
on a painted China fan.

  “Make him guess! David, guess how much—”

  “Pobbles, you’re not to!”

  “I shall!”

  “Minnie, stop her!”

  “Winnie, don’t let her!”

  “David, guess how much Minnie paid—”

  “I’m rotten at guessing.” David had no use for the Alderey girls. “I’m absolutely rotten. And I think clothes are a bore, and sales immoral. And now, please, I’d like to be introduced to my cousin Flora. It is Flora, isn’t it?”

  The scarlet painted mouth opened and said, “No—Folly.”

  All three Alderey girls spoke together, giggling.

  “Oh, Folly!”

  “Who is he?” said the little purring voice. Another imp, a different one this time, beckoned to David.

  He responded with alacrity.

  “Let me introduce David Fordyce. I’m either a third cousin twice removed, or a second cousin three times removed. Are you any good at the Family tree? I’m rotten at it myself.”

  “I want some tea,” said Folly.

  She turned her back on the Alderey girls and edged towards the door. David followed her.

  Later on, in the hall, he gave Eleanor back her violets. It seemed quite natural to both of them that he should put the bunch into her hand with no more than a casual “Here are your flowers.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Eleanor. They might have been meeting every day.

  She stood on the bottom step of the stair with her left hand on the newel-post; her right hand held the violets between them. She looked down on David because they were nearly of a height and the step made her the taller for the moment.

  “They’re faded.” David’s voice was a little different to the voice he had for the Family.

  “Yes.” Eleanor’s voice was different too.

  David was remembering that at their last meeting he had knelt and hidden his face against her dress; and Eleanor remembered the sound of the sobbing breath with which she had tried at the last to say his name. She said now, quickly:

  “David, come and see me.”