CHAPTER IV
THE TALE OF A POSTMARK
“Yes,” said Lady Deane, “we leave today week: Roger has to be back the first week in May, and I want to stop at one or two places en route.”
“Let’s see. To-day’s the 19th, no, the 20th; there’s nothing to remind one of time here. That’ll be the 27th. That’s about my date; we might go together if you and Deane have no objection.”
“Oh, I should be delighted, General; and shall you stay at all in Paris?”
“A few days—just to show Dolly the sights.”
“How charming! And you and I must have some expeditions together. Roger is so odd about not liking to take me.”
“We’ll do the whole thing, Lady Deane,” answered General Bellairs, heartily. “Notre Dame, the Versailles, the Invalides, Eiffel Tower.”
Lady Deane’s broad white brow showed a little pucker.
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” said she. “Oh, but Roger could take Dora to those, couldn’t he, while you and I made a point of seeing some of the real life of the people? Of studying them in their ordinary resorts, their places of recreation and amusement.”
“Oh, the Français, and the opera, and so on, of course.”
“No, no, no,” exclaimed Lady Deane, tapping her foot impatiently and fixing her gray eyes on the General’s now puzzled face. “Not the same old treadmill in Paris as in London! Not that, General!”
“What then, my dear lady?” asked he. “Your wish is law to me,” and it was true that he had become very fond of his earnest young friend. “What do you want to see? The Chamber of Deputies?”
Sir Roger’s voice struck in.
“I’m not a puritanical husband, Bellairs, but I must make a stand somewhere. Not the Chamber of Deputies.”
“Don’t be silly, Roger dear,” said Lady Deane, in her usual tone of dispassionate reproof.
“I can’t find out where she does want to go to,” remarked the General.
“I can tell you,” said Sir Roger, and he leant down and whispered a name; in the General’s ear. The General jumped.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t been there since the fifties. Is it still like what it used to be?”
“How should I know?” inquired Sir Roger. “I’m not a student of social phenomena. Maud is, so she wants to go.”
Lady Deane was looking on with a quiet smile.
“She never mentioned it,” protested the General.
“Oh, of course if there’s a worse place now!” conceded Sir Roger.
“I’ll make up my mind when we arrive,” observed Lady Deane. “Anyhow I shall rely on you, General.”
The General looked a little uncomfortable.
“If Deane doesn’t object”
“I shouldn’t think of taking my wife to such places.”
Suddenly Dora Bellairs rushed up to them.
“Have you seen Mr. Ellerton?” she cried. “Where is he?”
“In the smoking-room,” answered Sir Roger. “Do you want him?”
“Would you mind? I can’t go in there: it’s full of men.”
“After all we must be somewhere,” pleaded Sir Roger as he went on his errand.
“Dolly,” said the General, “I’ve just made a charming arrangement. Lady Deane and Sir Roger start for Paris to-day week, and we’re going with them. You said you’d like another week here.”
“It’s charming our being able to go together, isn’t it?” said Lady Deane. Dora’s face did not express rapture, yet she liked the Deanes very much.
“Oh, but” she began.
“Well?” asked her father.
“I rather want to go a little sooner.”
“I’m afraid,” said Lady Deane, “we shan’t get Roger to move before then. He’s bent on seeing the tennis tournament through. When did you want to go, Dora?”
“Well, in fact—to-night.”
“My dear Dolly, what a weathercock you are! It’s impossible. I’m dining with the Grand Duke on Monday. You must make up your mind to stay, young woman.”
“Oh, please, papa”
“But why do you want to go?” asked the General, rather impatiently.
Dora had absolutely no producible reason for her eagerness to go. And yet—Oh, if they only knew what was at stake! “We’re to be married in a fortnight!” She could see the words dancing before her eyes. And she must waste a precious week here!
“Do you want me, Miss Bellairs?” asked Charlie Ellerton, coming up to them.
“Yes. I want—oh, I want to go to Rumpelmayer’s.”
“All right. Come along. I’m delighted to go with you.”
They walked off in silence. Dora was in distress. She saw that the General was immovable.
Suddenly Charlie turned to her and remarked,
“Well, it’s all over with me, Miss Bellairs.”
“What? How do you mean?”
“My chance is gone. They’re to be married in a fortnight. I had a letter to say so this morning.”
Dora turned suddenly to him.
“Oh, but it’s too extraordinary,” she cried. “So had I!”
“What?”
“Why, a letter to say they were to be married in a fortnight.”
“Nonsense!”
“Yes. Mr. Ellerton—who—who is your friend?”
“Her name’s Mary Travers.”
“And who is she going to marry?”
“Ah! She hasn’t told me that.”
A suspicion of the truth struck them both. Charlie produced his letter.
“She writes,” he said, showing the postmark, “from Dittington.”
“It is! It is!” she cried. “It must be Mary Travers that Mr. Ashforth is going to marry!”
“Is that your friend?”
“Yes. Is she pretty, Mr. Ellerton?”
“Oh, awfully. What sort of a fellow is he?”
“Splendid!”
“Isn’t it a deuced queer thing?”
“Most extraordinary. And when we told one another we never thought”
“How could we?”
“Well, no, we couldn’t, of course.”
A pause followed. Then Charlie observed: “I suppose there’s nothing to be done.”
“Nothing to be done, Mr. Ellerton! Why if I were a man I’d leave for England to-night.”
“And why can’t you?”
“Papa won’t. But you might.”
“Ye—es, I suppose I might. It would look rather odd, wouldn’t it?”
“Why, you yourself suggested it!”
“Yes, but the marriage was a long way off then.”
“There’s the more reason now for haste.”
“Of course, that’s true, but”
“Oh, if papa would only take me!” A sudden idea seemed to strike Charlie; he assumed an air of chivalrous sympathy.
“When shall you go?” he asked.
“Not till to-day week,” she said. “We shan’t get to England till three or four days before it.” Dora knew nothing of the proposed stay in Paris.
“Look here, Miss Bellairs,” said Charlie, “we agreed to stand by one another. I shall wait and go when you do.”
“But think”
“I’ve thought.”
“You’re risking everything.”
“If she’ll break it off ten days before, she’ll do the same four days before.”
“If she really loves you she will.”
“Anyhow we’ll stand or fall together.”
“Oh, I oughtn’t to let you, but I can’t refuse. How kind you are!”
“Then that’s settled,” said Charlie, “And we must try to console one another till then.”
“The suspense is awful, isn’t it?”
“Of course. But we must appear cheerful. We mustn’t betray ourselves.”
“Not for the world! I can never thank you enough. You’ll come with us all the way?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you again.”
She gave him her hand, which he pressed gently.
“Hullo!” said he. “We seem to have got up by the church somewhere. Where were we going to?”
“Why, to Rumpelmayer’s.”
“Oh, ah! Well, let’s go back to the hotel.”
Wonderings on the extraordinary coincidence, with an occasional reference to the tender tie of a common sorrow which bound them together, beguiled the journey back, and when they reached the hotel Dora was quite calm. Charlie seemed distinctly cheerful, and when his companion left him he sat down by Deane and remarked in a careless way, just as if he neither knew nor cared what the rest of them were going to do,
“Well, I shall light out of here in a few days. I suppose you’re staying some time longer?”
“Off in a week,” said Sir Roger.
“Oh, by Jove, that’s about my mark. Going back to England?”
“Yes, I suppose—so—ultimately. We shall stay a few days in Paris en route. The Bellairs’ go with us.”
“Oh, do they?”
Sir Roger smiled gently.
“Surprised?” he asked.
Charlie ignored the question.
“And you aren’t going to hurry?” he inquired.
“Why should we?”
Charlie sat silent. It was tolerably plain that, unless the few days en route were very few indeed, John Ashforth and Mary Travers were in a fair way to be prosperously and peacefully married before Dora Bellairs set foot in England. And if he stayed with the Bellairs’, before he did, either! Charlie lit a cigarette and sat puffing and thinking.
“Dashed nice girl, Dora Bellairs,” observed Sir Roger.
“Think so?”
“I do. She’s the only girl I ever saw that Laing was smitten with.”
“Laing!” said Charlie.
“Well, what’s the matter? He’s an uncommon good chap, Laing—one of the best chaps I know—and he’s got lots of coin. I don’t expect she’d sneeze at Laing.”
It is, no doubt, taking a very serious responsibility to upset an arrangement arrived at deliberately and carried almost to a conclusion. A man should be very sure that he can make a woman happy—happier than any other man could-before he asks her to face the turmoil and the scandal of breaking off her marriage only a week before its celebration. Sure as he may be of his own affection, he must be equally sure of hers, equally sure that their mutual love is deep and permanent. He must consider his claims to demand such a sacrifice. What remorse will be his if, afterwards, he discovers that what he did was not, in truth, for her real happiness! He must be on his guard against mere selfishness or mere vanity masquerading in the garb of a genuine passion.
As these thoughts occurred to Charlie Ellerton he felt that he was at a crisis of his life. He also felt glad that he had still a quiet week at Cannes in which to revolve these considerations in his mind. Above all, he must do nothing hastily.
Dora came out, a book in her hand. Her soft white frock fluttered in the breeze, and she pushed back a loose lock of dark hair that caressed her check.
“A dashed nice girl, upon my honor,” said Sir Roger Deane.
“Oh, very.”
“I say, old chap, I suppose you’re in no hurry. You’ll put in a few days in Paris? We might have a day out, mightn’t we?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Charlie, and, when Deane left him, he sat on in solitude. Was it possible that in the space of a week? No, it was impossible. And yet, with a girl like that
“I did the right thing in waiting to go with her, anyhow,” said Charlie, comforting himself.