Second String

"You can take it," said Jack to the messenger boy. "And here's half a crown for yourself."

The messenger boy was a London boy; his professional belt was tight with tea; and half a crown for himself! He put on his cap and stood on the threshold. Escape was easy; he indulged his native humour.

"From this" – he exhibited the half-crown – "and your looks, gov'nor," he said, "I gather that she's accepted ye! My best wishes for yer 'appiness!"

"Damn the boy!" said Jack, charging for the door in an explosion of laughter. The boy was already half-way down the street. "Hope my letter was all right," Jack reflected, as he came back, baulked of his prey. "May stop and see me, may she! Bless her heart!"

Jack Rock felt that he had the chance of his life. He also felt that he would like to obliterate what, in his humility, he now declared to have been a sad blunder – the offer of his butcher's shop. A man like Andy, a lad with friends like that – Mr. Harry Belfield, Mr. Foot, M.P., Mr. and Miss Wellgood, above all this dazzling Miss Doris Flower – to be the Meriton butcher! Perish the thought! Publishing was a gentleman's business. Aye, and his Andy should not go back to Canada. If he did, old Jack felt that the best part of his own life would be carried far away across the seas.

The thing should be done dramatically. "I'd like Andy to have a story to tell her!" It was not at all doubtful whom he meant by "her."

Nearly six – the bank was shut long ago. But George Croton was a friend as well as a bank manager; he would just have had tea. Jack crossed the street and dropped in.

"Why, of course I can, Jack," said Mr. Croton, wiping his bald head with a red handkerchief. "You've securities lodged with us that more than cover it. Draw your cheque. We won't wrong you over the interest till you adjust the account. Going to buy a Derby winner?"

"I ain't so sure I'm not goin' to enter one," said Jack. He wrote his cheque. "That'll be all right to-morrow morning?"

"Unless our shutters are up, it will, Jack," Mr. Croton jestingly replied.

"Thank God I've been a careful man," thought old Jack. "One that knows a horse too! Her talkin' about 'Andy'!" The Nun continued to amuse and delight him immensely. Why, he'd seen her picture on the hoardings last time he went up to Tattersall's, to sell that bay filly! Lord, not to have thought of that! That was her – the Nun! He thought much more about Miss Flower than about Andy as he took his way to Andy's lodgings.

Andy was at home; he had been back from town nearly an hour. But his own concerns were quite out of his head. Harry Belfield had been waiting for him – actually waiting, Harry the Great! – and had hailed him with "I had to come and tell you all about it myself, old fellow!"

In Andy's great devotion to Harry there was mingled an element which seemed to himself absurd, but which held its place obstinately – dim and denied, yet always there. It was a sense of something compassionate, something protective, not diminishing his admiration but qualifying it; making him not only believe that all would, but also urgently pray that all might, go well with Harry, that Harry might have everything that he wished, possibly that Harry might wish the things that he ought to have, though Andy's conscious analysis of the feeling did not reach as far as this. He would not only set his hero on a pedestal, he would have the pedestal securely fenced round, barricaded against danger, ensured against bombs; even a screen against strong and sudden winds might be useful to the statue.

The statue, it now appeared, had taken all these precautions for itself. Vivien Wellgood was each and all of these things – fence, screen, and barricade. And many other things besides, such as an ideal, an incentive, an inspiration. It was among Harry's attractions that he was not in the least ashamed of his emotions or shy about them.

"With the girls one meets in town it's a bargain," said Harry. "With her – oh, I can talk to you, old man! – it really does seem a sort of sacrament."

"I know. I mean I can imagine."

"Not things a fellow can talk about to everybody," Harry pursued. "Too – well, sacred, you know. But when for absolutely the first time in your life you feel the real thing, you know the difference. The pater told me not to be in a hurry about it; but a thing like that's just the same now or a thousand years hence. It's there – and that's all about it!"

Andy felt a little out of his depth. He had had one fancy himself, but it had been nothing like so wonderful as this. It was Harry's privilege to be able to feel things in that marvellous way. Andy was not equal even to commenting on them.

"When are you going to be married?" he asked, sticking to a matter-of-fact line of sympathy.

"Going to wait till October – rather a bore! But here it's nearly July, and I've got my tour of the Division fixed for September. After all, things aren't so bad as they might be. And when I'm through with the campaign – a honeymoon in Italy! Pretty good, Andy?"

"Sounds all right," laughed Andy. "I expect I shall have to send you my blessing from Montreal."

"From Montreal? What – you're not going back?"

"The business is a frost in London, Harry; and I've nothing else to look to."

"Lord, now, what a pity! Well, I'm sorry. We shall miss you, Andy. Still, it's a ripping fine country, isn't it? Mind you cable us congratulations!"

"I'm not quite certain about going yet," said Andy. He felt rather like being seen off by the train – very kindly.

"Oh, well, I hope you won't have to, old chap, I really do. But it'll be better than the shop! I say – I told Billy and the girls about that. They roared."

"I know they did – I met them at lunch to-day."

"Had they heard about me?" Harry asked rather eagerly. "Or did you tell them? What did they say?"

"Oh – er – awfully pleased," said Andy, rather confused. It seemed strange to remember how very little had been said on the wonderful topic. Somehow they had wandered off to other things.

"I must give them all one more dinner," said Harry, smiling, "before I settle down."

"Foot's brother was there – Gilly Foot – and – "

"Did they ask what she was like?"

"I – I don't quite remember – everybody was talking. Gilly Foot – "

"I expect they were a bit surprised, weren't they?"

"Oh yes, they seemed surprised." Andy was really trying to remember. "Yes, they did."

"I don't think I've got the character of a marrying man," smiled Harry. "I hope you told them I meant business?" Harry rose to his feet with a laugh. "They used to rot a lot, you know."

Harry was not to be got off the engrossing subject of himself, his past, and his future; evidently he could not imagine that the lunch-party had kept off these subjects either. With a smile Andy made up his mind not to trouble him with the matter of Gilly Foot.

"I'll walk back with you as far as Halton gates," he said.

"No, you won't, old chap," laughed Harry. "Vivien's been in the town and is going to call for me here, and I'm going to walk with her as far as Nutley gates – at least."

Voices came from outside. "Wish you good evenin', miss!" – and a very timid "Good evening, Mr. Rock." Vivien and Jack! How was Vivien bearing the encounter?

"There she is!" cried Harry, and ran out of the house, Andy following.

"Ah, Jack, how are you? Why, you're looking like a two-year-old!"

Jack indeed looked radiant as he made bold to offer his congratulations. He gave Harry his hand and a hearty squeeze, then looked at Vivien tentatively. She blushed, pulled herself together, and offered Jack her hand. The feat accomplished, she glanced quickly at Andy, blushing yet more deeply. He knew what was in her mind, and nodded his head at her in applause. In Harry's cause she had touched a butcher.

"I like to see young folks happy. I like to see 'em get what they want, Mr. Harry."

"You see before you one at least who has, Jack. I wonder if I may say two, Vivien? And I wish I could say three, Andy."

"Maybe you wouldn't be so far wrong, Mr. Harry," chuckled Jack. "But that's neither here nor there, and I mustn't be keepin' you and your young lady."

With blithe salutations the lovers went off. Andy watched them; they were good to see. He felt himself their friend – Vivien's as well as Harry's, for Vivien trusted him with her shy confidences. They were hard to leave – even as were the delights of London with its lunch-parties and the like.

"Going for a walk, Jack?"

"No, I want a talk with you, Andy." He led the way in, and sat down at the table. "I've been thinkin' a bit about you, Andy; so have some others, I reckon. Mr. Belfield – he speaks high of you – and there's others. There's no reason you shouldn't take your part with the best of 'em. Why, they feel that – they make you one of themselves. So you shall be. I can't make you a rich man, not as they reckon money, but I can help a bit."

"O Jack, you're always at it," Andy groaned affectionately.

The old fellow's eyes twinkled as he drew out a cheque and pushed it across the table.

"Put that in your pocket, and go and talk to Mr. Foot's brother," he said.

Andy's start was almost a jump; old Jack's pent-up mirth broke out explosively.

"But this – this is supernatural!" cried Andy.

"Looks like it, don't it? How did I find out about that? Well, it shows, Andy, that it's no use you thinkin' of tryin' not to keep a certain promise you made to me – because I find you out!"

"Dear old Jack!" Andy was standing by him now, his hand on his shoulder. "I don't believe I could have kept the promise in this case. I think I should have gone back – since the thing's no go in London."

"Yes, you'd have gone back – just like your obstinate ways. But I found out. I've my correspondents."

"But there's been no time! Well, you are one too many for me, Jack!"

Jack's pride in his cunning was even greater than his delight in his benevolence. "Perhaps I've had a wireless telegram?" he suggested, wagging his head. "Or a carrier pigeon? Who knows?"

"But who was it told you?"

"You've got some friends I didn't know of, up there in London. Havin' your fling, are you, Andy? That's right. And very good taste you seem to have too." He nodded approvingly.

"Oh, I give it up," said Andy. "You're a wizard, Jack."

"If you talk about a witch, you'll be a bit nearer the point, I reckon. Not meanin' me, I need hardly say! Well, I must let you into the secret." With enormous pride he produced Miss Doris Flower's letter. "Read that, my lad."

"The Nun!" cried Andy, as his eye fell on the signature. "Who'd have thought of that?"

He read the letter; he listened to Jack's enraptured story of how it had arrived. "And you're not goin' to shame her by refusin' the money now, are you?" asked cunning Jack. "If you do, you'll make her feel she's been meddlin'. Nice thing to make her feel that!"

Andy saw through this little device, but he only patted Jack's shoulder again, saying quietly, "I'll take the money, Jack." All the kindness made his heart very full – whether it came from old-time friends or these new friends from a new world who made his cause theirs with so ready a sympathy.

"You're launched now, lad – fair launched! And I know you'll float," said old Jack, grave at last, as he took his leave, his precious letter most carefully stowed away in his breast-pocket. It had been a great day for Jack, great for what he had done, great for the way in which his doing it had come about.

Within less than twenty-four hours Montreal had been written to, Gilly Foot had been written to – and Andy was at the Nun's door.

She dwelt with Miss Dutton in a big block of flats near Sloane Street, very high up. Her sitting-room was small and cosy, presenting, however, one marked peculiarity. On two of the walls the paper was red, on the other two green. Seeing Andy's eyes attracted by this phenomenon, the Nun explained: "We quarrelled over the colour to such an extent that at last I lost my temper, and, when Sally was away for a day, had it done like this – to spite her. Now she won't let me alter it, because it's a perpetual warning to me not to lose my temper. But it does look a little queer, doesn't it?"

She had received him with her usual composure. "I knew you'd come, because I knew Mr. Jack Rock would do as I wanted, and I was sure he couldn't keep the letter to himself. Well, that's all right! It was only that the obvious thing wanted doing."

"But I don't see – well, I don't see why you should care."

She looked at him, a lurking laugh in her eye.

"Oh, you needn't suppose that it was life and death to me! It was rather fun, just on its own account. You'll like Gilly; he's a good sort, though he's rather greedy. Did you notice that? Billy's really my friend. I'm very fond of Billy. Are you ambitious? Billy's very ambitious."

"No, I don't think I am."

The Nun lay back on a long chair; she was certainly wonderfully pretty as she smiled lazily at Andy.

"You look a size too large for the room," she remarked. "Yes, Billy's ambitious. He'd like to marry me, only he's ambitious. It doesn't make any difference to me, because I'm not in love with him; but I'm afraid it's an awfully uncomfortable state of affairs for poor Billy."

"Well, if he'd have no chance anyhow, couldn't you sort of let him know that?" Andy suggested, much amused at an innocent malice which marked her description of Billy's conflict of feeling.

"No use at all. I've tried. But he's quite sure he could persuade me. In fact I don't think he believes I should refuse if it came to the point. So there he is, always just pulling up on the brink! He can't like it, but he goes on. Oh, but tell me all about Harry Belfield. Now I've got you off" my mind, I'm awfully interested about that."

Andy was not very ready at description. She assisted him by a detailed and skilful cross-examination, directed to eliciting full information about Vivien Wellgood's appearance, habits, and character – how old she was, where she had been, what she had seen. When the picture of Vivien had thus emerged – of Vivien's youth and secluded life, how she had been nowhere and seen nothing, how she was timid and shy, innocent and trustful, above all, how she idolized Harry – the Nun considered it for a moment in silence.

"Poor girl!" she said at last. Andy looked sharply at her. She smiled. "Oh yes, you worship Harry, don't you? Well, he's a very charming man. I was rather inclined to fall in love with him once myself. Luckily for me I didn't."

"I'm sure he'd have responded," Andy laughed.

"Yes, that's just it; he would have! When did you say they were going to be married?"

"October, I think Harry said."

"Four months! And he dotes on her?"

"I should think so. You should just hear him!"

"I daresay I shall. He always likes talking to one girl about how much he's in love with another."

The Nun's matter-of-fact way of speaking may have contributed to the effect, but in the end the effect of what she said was to give the impression that she regarded Harry Belfield's present passion as one of a series – far from the first, not at all likely to be the last. The inflection of tone with which she had exclaimed "Four months!" implied that it was a very long while to wait.

"You'd understand it better if you saw them together," said Andy, eager, as always, to champion his friend.

"You're very enthusiastic about her, anyhow," smiled the Nun. "It almost sounds as if you were a little in love with her yourself."

"Such a thing never occurred to me." Then he laughed, for the Nun was laughing at him. "Well, she would make every man want to – well, sort of want to take care of her, you know."

"Well, there's no harm in your doing that – in moderation; and she may come to want it. Have you ever been in love yourself?"

"Yes, once," he confessed; "a long while ago, just before I left South Africa."

"Got over it?" she inquired anxiously.

"Yes, of course I have, long ago. It wasn't very fatal."

"Fickle creature!"

Andy gave one of his bursts of hearty laughter to hear himself thus described.

"I like you," she said; "and I'm glad you're going in with Gilly, because we shall often see you at lunch-time."

"Oh, but I can't afford to lunch at that place every day!"

"You'll have to – with Gilly; because lunch is the only time he ever gets ideas – he always says so – and unless he can tell somebody else he forgets them again, and they're lost beyond recall. He used to tell them to me, but I always forgot them too. Now he'll tell you; so you'll have to be at lunch, and put it down as office expenses."

Andy had risen to go. The Nun sat up. "I can only tell you once again how grateful I am for all your kindness," he said.

She gave him a whimsically humorous look. "It's really time somebody told you," she said; "and as I feel rather responsible for you, after my letter to Mr. Jack Rock, I expect I'm the proper person to do it. If you're not told, you may go about doing a lot of mischief without knowing anything about it. Prepare for a surprise. You're attractive! Yes, you are. You're attractive to women, moreover. People don't do things for you out of mere kindness, as they might be kind to a little boy in the street or to a lost dog. They do them because you're attractive, because it gives them pleasure to please you. That sort of thing will go on happening to you; very likely it'll help you a good deal." She nodded at him wisely, then broke suddenly into her gurgle. "Oh, dear me, you do look so much astonished, and if you only knew how red you've got!"

"Oh, I feel the redness all right; I know that's there," muttered Andy, whose confusion was indeed lamentable. "But when a – a person like you says that sort of thing to me – "

"A person, like me?" She lifted her brows. "What am I? I'm the fashion for three or four seasons – that's what I am. Nobody knows where I come from; nobody knows where I'm going to; and nobody cares. I don't know myself, and I'm not sure I care. My small opinion doesn't count for much. Only, in this case, it happens to be true."

"Where do you come from?" asked Andy, in a sudden impulse of great friendliness.

She looked him straight in the face. "Nobody knows. Nobody must ask."

"I've got no people belonging to me either. Even Jack Rock's no relation – or only a 'step.'"

Her eyes grew a little clouded. "You mustn't make me silly. Only we're friends now, aren't we? We don't do what we can for one another out of kindness, but for love?" She daintily blew him a kiss, and smiled again. "And because we're both very attractive – aren't we?"

"Oh, I'll accept the word if I'm promoted to share it with you. But I can't say I've got over the surprise yet."

"You've stopped blushing, anyhow. That's something. Good-bye. I shall see you at lunch, I expect, to-morrow."

Andy was very glad that she liked him, but he was glad of it because he liked her. His head was not turned by her assurance that he was attractive in a general sense: in the first place, because he remained distinctly sceptical as to the correctness of her opinion, sincere as it obviously was; in the second, because the matter did not appear to be one of much moment. No doubt folks sometimes did one a good turn for love's sake, but, taking the world broadly, a man had to make his way without relying on such help as that. That sort of help had given him a fair start now. He was not going to expect any more of it. It seemed to him that Jack Rock – or Jack and the Nun between them? – had already given him more than his share. It was curious to associate her with Jack Rock in the work; a queer freak of chance that she had come into it! But she had come into it – by chance and her own wilful fancy. Odd her share in it certainly was, but it was not unpleasant to him. He felt that he had gained a friend, as well as an opening in Gilly Foot's publishing house.

"But I wish," he found himself reflecting as he travelled back in the Underground, "that she understood Harry better."

Here he fell into an error unusual with him; he overrated his own judgment, led thereto by old love and admiration. The Nun had clear eyes; she had seen much of Harry Belfield, and no small amount of life. She had had to dodge many dangers. She knew what she was talking about. In all the side of things she knew so well, Andy, with his one attachment before he left South Africa long ago, was an innocent. Perhaps it was some dim consciousness of this, some half-realized feeling that he was on strange ground where she was on familiar, which made him find it difficult to get what she had said or hinted out of his head. It was apt to come back to him when he saw Vivien Wellgood; an unlooked-for association in his mind of people who seemed far remote from one another. Thus the Nun had come into the old circle of his thoughts; henceforward she too belonged, in a way, to the world of Meriton.

Chapter XI

THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW

Vivien and Isobel were alone at Nutley. It had been Wellgood's custom to go every summer to Norway by himself, leaving his daughter at school, to the care of her governess, or, for the last year or two, of her companion. He saw no reason against following his practice this year; indeed he was glad to go. The interval before the wedding dragged for him, as perhaps it did for others. He had carried matters with Isobel as far as he well could, unless he meant to carry them to the end – and it was not his intention to do that just yet. A last bachelor excursion – he told himself confidently that it was to be his last – had its attraction. Early in July he packed his portmanteau and went, leaving instructions with Isobel that her chaperonage was to be vigilant and strict. "Err on the safe side," he said. "No harm in that."

"I shall bore them very much," Isobel suggested.

"That's what you're here for." He added, with his hard confident smile, "Later on we'll try to give you a change from it."

She knew well what he meant, and was glad to see the last of him for a while; nay, in her heart would have been glad to see the last of him for ever. She clung to what his words and acts promised, from no affection for him, but because it saved her from the common fate which her pride despised – being dismissed, turned off, now that she was to become superfluous. She had been in effect Vivien's governess, her schoolmistress, invested with power and authority. She hated to step down; it was open to her to step up. (A case not unlike Andy's.) Here was the secret which maintained her pride. In the strength of it she still ruled her charge with no lessening of prestige. It was no more in Vivien's nature than in her position to wonder at that; her eyes were set on a near sure liberty. Temporary restraint, though it might be irksome, seemed no more than a natural passing incident. Harry noticed and was amused. He thought that Wellgood must have said a word to Isobel; hinted perhaps that Vivien was wax in her lover's hands, and that her lover was impetuous. That Wellgood, or Isobel herself, or anybody else, should harbour that idea did not displease Harry Belfield; not to be able to resist him would be a venial sin, even in Vivien.

It was an empty season in the little circle of Meriton society. Harry's father and mother were away, gone to Switzerland. Andy came down for week-ends generally; all the working days his nose was close to the grindstone in the office of Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co. He was learning the business, delighting in his new activity. Harry would not have been in Meriton either, had he not been in love in Meriton. As it was, he had his early ride, then read his books, then went over to Nutley for lunch, and spent all the rest of the day there. Often the curate would come in and make a four at tennis, but he did not stay to dinner. Almost every evening the three were alone, in the house or on the terrace by the water. One night in the week Harry might be in town, one night perhaps he would bring Andy. Four or five nights those three would be together; and the question for Isobel was how often, for how long, how completely she was to leave the engaged couple to themselves. To put it more brutally – how much of a bore was she to make herself?

To be a spy, a hindrance, a clog, to know that joy waited on the closing of the door behind her back, to listen to allusions half-intelligible, to turn a blind ear to words too tender, not to notice a furtive caress, to play the dragon of convention, the old-maid duenna – that was her function in Vivien's eyes. And the same in Harry's? Oh yes! the same in Harry Belfield's handsome, mischievous, deriding eyes! He laughed at her for what she did – for what she did in the discharge of her duty, earning her bread-and-butter. Earning more than he thought, though! Because of the derision in Harry's eyes, again she would not let Wellgood go. Vivien should awake to realize that she was more than a chaperon, tiresome for the moment, soon to be dismissed; Harry should understand that to one man she was no old-maid duenna, but the woman he wanted for wife. While she played chaperon at Nutley she wrote letters to Wellgood – letters keeping his passion alive, playing with his confidence, transparently feigning to ignore, hardly pretending to deny. They were letters a lover successful in the end would laugh at. If in the issue the man found himself jockeyed, they would furnish matter for fury as a great deceit.