The Intrusions of Peggy

'You seem to have liked Mrs. Trevalla a good deal on sight.'

'She looked so sad, so solitary, a mere girl in her widow's weeds.' His tone grew compassionate, almost tender, as he recalled the forlorn figure which had timidly stolen into the dining-room of the Paris hotel.

'You'll find her a little bit changed perhaps,' Peggy suggested with a suppressed malice that found pleasure in anticipating his feelings.

'Oh, well, she must come anyhow, I suppose.'

'Yes, let her come, Airey. It does these people good to see how the poor live.'

Airey laughed, but not very heartily. However, it was well understood that everybody in their circle was very poor, and Peggy felt no qualms about referring to the fact.

'I shall come the next day and hear all about the interview. Fancy these interesting things happening to you! Because, you know, she's rather famous. Mrs. Bonfill has taken her up, and the Glentorlys are devoted to her, and Lady Blixworth has said some of her best things about her. She'll bring you into touch with fashion.'

'Hang fashion!' said Airey. 'I wonder what her difficulty is.' He seemed quite preoccupied with the idea of Mrs. Trevalla's difficulty.

'I see you're going to be very romantic indeed,' laughed Peggy Ryle.

His eyes dwelt on her for a moment, and a very friendly expression filled them.

'Don't you get into any difficulties?' he said.

'There's never but one with me,' she laughed; 'and that doesn't hurt, Airey.'

There was a loud and cheerful knock on the door.

'Visitors! When people come, how do you account for me?'

'I say nothing. I believe you're taken for my daughter.'

'Not since you trimmed your beard! Well, it doesn't matter, does it? Let him in.'

The visitor proved to be nobody to whom Peggy needed to be accounted for; he was Tommy Trent, the smart, trim young man who had danced with her at Mrs. Bonfill's party.

'You here again!' he exclaimed in tones of grave censure, as he laid down his hat on the top of the red-leather book on the little table. He blew on the book first, to make sure it was not dusty.

Peggy smiled, and Airey relit his pipe. Tommy walked across and looked at the débris of the loaf. He shook his head when Peggy offered him tea.

A sudden idea seemed to occur to him.

'I'm awfully glad to find you here,' he remarked to her. 'It saves me going up to your place, as I meant. I've got some people dining to-night, and one of them's failed. I wonder if you'd come? I know it's a bore coming again so soon, but – '

'I haven't been since Saturday.'

'But it would get me out of a hole.' He spoke in humble entreaty.

'I'd come directly, but I'm engaged.'

Tommy looked at her sorrowfully, and, it must be added, sceptically.

'Engaged to dinner and supper,' averred Peggy with emphasis as she pulled her hat straight and put on her gloves.

'You wouldn't even look in between the two and – and have an ice with us?'

'I really can't eat three meals in one evening, Tommy.'

'Oh, chuck one of them. You might, for once!'

'Impossible! I'm dining with my oldest friend,' smiled Peggy. 'I simply can't.' She turned to Airey, giving him her hand with a laugh. 'I like you best, because you just let me – '

Both words and laughter died away; she stopped abruptly, looking from one man to the other. There was something in their faces that arrested her words and her merriment. She could not analyse what it was, but she saw that she had made both of them uncomfortable. They had guessed what she was going to say; it would have been painful to one of them, and the other knew it. But whom had she wounded – Tommy by implying that his hospitality was importunate and his kindness clumsy, or Airey by a renewed reference to his poverty as shown in the absence of pressing invitations from him? She could not tell; but a constraint had fallen on them both. She cut her farewell short and went away, vaguely vexed and penitent for an offence which she perceived but did not understand.

The two men stood listening a moment to her light footfall on the stairs.

'It's all a lie, you know,' said Tommy. 'She isn't engaged to dinner or to supper either. It's beastly, that's what it is.'

'Yours was all a lie too, I suppose?' Airey spoke in a dull hard voice.

'Of course it was, but I could have beaten somebody up in time, or said they'd caught influenza, or been given a box at the opera, or something.'

Airey sat down by the fireplace, his chin sunk on his necktie. He seemed unhappy and rather ashamed. Tommy glanced at him with a puzzled look, shook his head, and then broke into a smile – as though, in the end, the only thing for it was to be amused. Then he drew a long envelope from his pocket.

'I've brought the certificates along,' he said. 'Here they are. Two thousand. Just look at them. It's a good thing; and if you sit on it for a bit, it'll pay for keeping.' He laid the envelope on the small table by Airey's side, took up his hat, put it on, and lit a cigarette as he repeated, 'Just see they're all right, old chap.'

'They're sure to be right.' Airey shifted uncomfortably in his chair and pulled at his empty pipe.

Tommy tilted his hat far back on his head, turned a chair back foremost, and sat down on it, facing his friend.

'I'm your business man,' he remarked. 'I do your business and I hold my tongue about it. Don't I?'

'Like the tomb,' Airey acknowledged.

'And – Well, at any rate let me congratulate you on the bread-and-butter. Only – only, I say, she'd have dined with you, if you'd asked her, Airey.'

His usually composed and unemotional voice shook for an almost imperceptible moment.

'I know,' said Airey Newton. He rose, unlocked the safe, and threw the long envelope in. Then he unlocked the red-leather book, took a pen, made a careful entry in it, re-locked it, and returned to his chair. He said nothing more, but he glanced once at Tommy Trent in a timid way. Tommy smiled back in recovered placidity. Then they began to talk of inventions, patents, processes, companies, stocks, shares, and all manner of things that produce or have to do with money.

'So far, so good,' ended Tommy. 'And if the oxygen process proves commercially practicable – it's all right in theory, I know – I fancy you may look for something big.' He threw away his cigarette and stood up, as if to go. But he lingered a moment, and a touch of embarrassment affected his manner. Airey had quite recovered his confidence and happiness during the talk on money matters.

'She didn't tell you any news, I suppose?' Tommy asked.

'What, Peggy? No, I don't think so. Well, nothing about herself, anyhow.'

'It's uncommonly wearing for me,' Tommy complained with a pathetic look on his clear-cut healthy countenance. 'I know I must play a waiting game; if I said anything to her now I shouldn't have a chance. So I have to stand by and see the other fellows make the running. By Jove, I lie awake at nights – some nights, anyhow – imagining infernally handsome poets – Old Arty Kane isn't handsome, though! I say, Airey, don't you think she's got too much sense to marry a poet? You told me I must touch her imagination. Do I look like touching anybody's imagination? I'm about as likely to do it as – as you are.' His attitude towards the suggested achievement wavered between envy and scorn.

Airey endured this outburst – and its concluding insinuation – with unruffled patience. He was at his pipe again, and puffed out wisdom securely vague.

'You can't tell with a girl. It takes them all at once sometimes. Up to now I think it's all right.'

'Not Arty Kane?'

'Lord, no!'

'Nor Childwick? He's a clever chap, Childwick. Not got a sou, of course; she'd starve just the same.'

'She'd have done it before if it had been going to be Miles Childwick.'

'She'll meet some devilish fascinating chap some day, I know she will.'

'He'll ill-use her perhaps,' Airey suggested hopefully.

'Then I shall nip in, you mean? Have you been treating yourself to Drury Lane?'

Airey laughed openly, and presently Tommy himself joined in, though in a rather rueful fashion.

'Why the deuce can't we just like 'em?' he asked.

'That would be all right on the pessimistic theory of the world.'

'Oh, hang the world! Well, good-bye, old chap. I'm glad you approve of what I've done about the business.'

His reference to the business seemed to renew Airey Newton's discomfort. He looked at his friend, and after a long pause said solemnly:

'Tommy Trent!'

'Yes, Airey Newton!'

'Would you mind telling me – man to man – how you contrive to be my friend?'

'What?'

'You're the only man who knows – and you're my only real friend.'

'I regard it as just like drinking,' Tommy explained, after a minute's thought. 'You're the deuce of a good fellow in every other way. I hope you'll be cured some day too. I may live to see you bankrupt yet.'

'I work for it. I work hard and usefully.'

'And even brilliantly,' added Tommy.

'It's mine. I haven't robbed anybody. And nobody has any claim on me.'

'I didn't introduce this discussion.' Tommy was evidently pained. He held out his hand to take leave.

'It's an extraordinary thing, but there it is,' mused Airey. He took Tommy's hand and said, 'On my honour I'll ask her to dinner.'

'Where?' inquired Tommy, in a suspicious tone.

Airey hesitated.

'Magnifique?' said Tommy firmly and relentlessly.

'Yes, the – the Magnifique,' agreed Airey, after another pause.

'Delighted, old man!' He waited a moment longer, but Airey Newton did not fix a date.

Airey was left sorrowful, for he loved Tommy Trent. Though Tommy knew his secret, still he loved him – a fact that may go to the credit of both men. Many a man in Airey's place would have hated Tommy, even while he used and relied on him; for Tommy's knowledge put Airey to shame – a shame he could not stifle any more than he could master the thing that gave it birth.

Certainly Tommy deserved not to be hated, for he was very loyal. He showed that only two days later, and at a cost to himself. He was dining with Peggy Ryle – not she with him; for a cheque had arrived, and they celebrated its coming. Tommy, in noble spirits (the coming of a cheque was as great an event to him as to Peggy herself), told her how he had elicited the offer of a dinner from Airey Newton; he chuckled in pride over it.

How men misjudge things! Peggy sat up straight in her chair and flushed up to the outward curve of her hair.

'How dare you?' she cried. 'As if he hadn't done enough for me already! I must have eaten pounds of butter – of mere butter alone! You know he can't afford to give dinners.'

Besides anger, there was a hint of pride in her emphasis on 'dinners.'

'I believe he can,' said Tommy, with the air of offering a hardy conjecture.

'I know he can't, or of course he would. Do you intend to tell me that Airey – Airey of all men – is mean?'

'Oh, no, I – I don't say – '

'It's you that's mean! I never knew you do such a thing before. You've quite spoilt my pleasure this evening.' She looked at him sternly. 'I don't like you at all to-night. I'm very grievously disappointed in you.'

Temptation raged in Tommy Trent; he held it down manfully.

'Well, I don't suppose he'll give the dinner, anyhow,' he remarked morosely.

'No, because he can't; but you'll have made him feel miserable about it. What time is it? I think I shall go home.'

'Look here, Peggy; you aren't doing me justice.'

'Well, what have you got to say?'

Tommy, smoking for a moment or two, looked across at her and answered, 'Nothing.'

She rose and handed him her purse.

'Pay the bill, please, and mind you give the waiter half-a-crown. And ask him to call me a cab, please.'

'It's only half a mile, and it's quite fine.'

'A rubber-tired hansom, please, with a good horse.'

Tommy put her into the cab and looked as if he would like to get in too. The cabman, generalising from observed cases, held the reins out of the way, that Tommy's tall hat might mount in safety.

'Tell him where to go, please. Good-night,' said Peggy.

Tommy was left on the pavement. He walked slowly along to his club, too upset to think of having a cigar.

'Very well,' he remarked, as he reached his destination. 'I played fair, but old Airey shall give that dinner – I'm hanged if he sha'n't! – and do it as if he liked it too!'

A vicious chuckle surprised the hall-porter as Tommy passed within the precincts.

Peggy drove home, determined to speak plainly to Airey himself; that was the only way to put it right.

'He shall know that I do him justice, anyhow,' said she. Thanks to the cheque, she was feeling as the rich feel, or should feel, towards those who have helped them in early days of struggle; she experienced a generous glow and meditated delicate benevolence. At least the bread-and-butter must be recouped an hundredfold.

So great is the virtue of twenty pounds, if only they happen to be sent to the right address. Most money, however, seems to go astray.

CHAPTER IV

'FROM THE MIDST OF THE WHIRL'

'Really I must congratulate you on your latest, Sarah,' remarked Lady Blixworth, who was taking tea with Mrs. Bonfill. 'Trix Trevalla is carrying everything before her. The Glentorlys have had her to meet Lord Farringham, and he was delighted. The men adore her, and they do say women like her. All done in six weeks! You're a genius!'

Mrs. Bonfill made a deprecatory gesture of a Non nobis order. Her friend insisted amiably:

'Oh, yes, you are. You choose so well. You never make a mistake. Now do tell me what's going to happen. Does Mortimer Mervyn mean it? Of course she wouldn't hesitate.'

Mrs. Bonfill looked at her volatile friend with a good-humoured distrust.

'When you congratulate me, Viola,' she said, 'I generally expect to hear that something has gone wrong.'

'Oh, you believe what you're told about me,' the accused lady murmured plaintively.

'It's experience,' persisted Mrs. Bonfill. 'Have you anything that you think I sha'n't like to tell me about Trix Trevalla?'

'I don't suppose you'll dislike it, but I should. Need she drive in the park with Mrs. Fricker?' Her smile contradicted the regret of her tone, as she spread her hands out in affected surprise and appeal.

'Mrs. Fricker's a very decent sort of woman, Viola. You have a prejudice against her.'

'Yes, thank heaven! We all want money nowadays, but for my part I'd starve sooner than get it from the Frickers.'

'Oh, that's what you want me to believe?'

'Dearest Sarah, no! That's what I'm afraid her enemies and yours will say.'

'I see,' smiled Mrs. Bonfill indulgently. She always acknowledged that Viola was neat – as a siege-gun might admit it of the field artillery.

'Couldn't you give her a hint? The gossip about Beaufort Chance doesn't so much matter, but – ' Lady Blixworth looked as if she expected to be interrupted, even pausing an instant to allow the opportunity. Mrs. Bonfill obliged her.

'There's gossip about Beaufort, is there?'

'Oh, there is, of course – that can't be denied; but it really doesn't matter as long as Mortimer doesn't hear about it.'

'Was there never more than one aspirant at a time when you were young?'

'As long as you're content, I am,' Lady Blixworth declared in an injured manner. 'It's not my business what Mrs. Trevalla does.'

'Don't be huffy,' was Mrs. Bonfill's maternal advice. 'As far as I can see, everything is going splendidly.'

'It is to be Mortimer?'

'How can I tell, my dear? If Mortimer Mervyn should ask my advice, which really isn't likely, what could I say except that Trix is a charming woman, and that I know of nothing against it?'

'She must be very well off, by the way she does things.' There was an inflection of question in her voice, but no direct interrogatory.

'Doubtless,' said Mrs. Bonfill. Often the craftiest suggestions failed in face of her broad imperturbability.

Lady Blixworth smiled at her. Mrs. Bonfill shook her head in benign rebuke. The two understood one another, and on the whole liked one another very well.

'All right, Sarah,' said Lady Blixworth; 'but if you want my opinion, it is that she's out-running the constable, unless – '

'Well, go on.'

'You give me leave? You won't order me out? Well, unless – Well, as I said, why drive Mrs. Fricker round the Park? Why take Connie Fricker to the Quinby-Lees's dance?'

'Oh, everybody goes to the Quinby-Lees's. She's never offered to bring them here or anywhere that matters.'

'You know the difference; perhaps the Frickers don't.'

'That's downright malicious, Viola. And of course they do; at least they live to find it out. No, you can't put me out of conceit with Trix Trevalla.'

'You're so loyal,' murmured Lady Blixworth in admiration. 'Really Sarah's as blind as a bat sometimes,' she reflected as she got into her carriage.

A world of people at once inquisitive and clear-sighted would render necessary either moral perfection or reckless defiance; indifference and obtuseness preserve a place for that mediocrity of conduct which characterises the majority. Society at large had hitherto found small fault with Trix Trevalla, and what it said, when passed through Lady Blixworth's resourceful intellect, gained greatly both in volume and in point. No doubt she had very many gowns, no doubt she spent money, certainly she flirted, possibly she was, for so young and pretty a woman, a trifle indiscreet. But she gave the impression of being able to take care of herself, and her attractions, combined with Mrs. Bonfill's unwavering patronage, would have sufficed to excuse more errors than she had been found guilty of. It was actually true that, while men admired, women liked her. There was hardly a discordant voice to break in harshly on her triumph.

There is no place like the top – especially when it is narrow, and will not hold many at a time. The natives of it have their peculiar joy, those who have painfully climbed theirs. Trix Trevalla seemed, to herself at least, very near the top; if she were not quite on it, she could put her head up over the last ledge and see it, and feel that with one more hoist she would be able to land herself there. It is unnecessary to recite the houses she went to, and would be (save for the utter lack of authority such a list would have) invidious; it would be tiresome to retail compliments and conquests. But the smallest, choicest gatherings began to know her, and houses which were not fashionable but something much beyond – eternal pillars supporting London society – welcomed her. This was no success of curiosity, of whim, of a season; it was the establishment of a position for life. From the purely social point of view, even a match with Mervyn could do little more. So Trix was tempted to declare in her pride.

But the case had other aspects, of course. It was all something of a struggle, however victorious; it may be supposed that generally it is. Security is hard to believe in, and there is always a craving to make the strong position impregnable. Life alone at twenty-six is – lonely. These things were in her mind, as they might have been in the thoughts of any woman so placed. There was another consideration, more special to herself, which could not be excluded from view: she had begun to realise what her manner of life cost. Behold her sitting before books and bills that revealed the truth beyond possibility of error or of gloss! Lady Blixworth's instinct had not been at fault. Trix's mouth grew rather hard again, and her eyes coldly resolute, as she studied these disagreeable documents.

From such studies she had arisen to go to dinner with Beaufort Chance and to meet the Frickers. She sat next Fricker, and talked to him most of the time, while Beaufort was very attentive to Mrs. Fricker, and the young man who had been procured for Connie Fricker fulfilled his appointed function. Fricker was not a bad-looking man, and was better bred and less aggressive than his wife or daughter. Trix found him not so disagreeable as she had expected; she encouraged him to talk on his own subjects, and began to find him interesting; by the end of dinner she had discovered that he, or at least his conversation, was engrossing. The old theme of making money without working for it, by gaming or betting, by chance or speculation, by black magic or white, is ever attractive to the children of men. Fricker could talk very well about it; he produced the impression that it was exceedingly easy to be rich; it seemed to be anybody's own fault if he were poor. Only at the end did he throw in any qualification of this broad position.

'Of course you must know the ropes, or find somebody who does.'

'There's the rub, Mr. Fricker. Don't people who know them generally keep their knowledge to themselves?'

'They've a bit to spare for their friends sometimes.' His smile was quietly reflective.

Beaufort Chance had hinted that some such benevolent sentiments might be found to animate Mr. Fricker. He had even used the idea as a bait to lure Trix to the dinner. Do what she would, she could not help giving Fricker a glance, half-grateful, half-provocative. Vanity – new-born of her great triumph – made her feel that her presence there was really a thing to be repaid. Her study of those documents tempted her to listen when the suggestion of repayment came. In the drawing-room Trix found herself inviting Mrs. Fricker to call. Youthful experiences made Trix socially tolerant in one direction if she were socially ambitious in another. She had none of Lady Blixworth's shudders, and was ready to be nice to Mrs. Fricker. Still her laugh was conscious, and she blushed a little when Beaufort Chance thanked her for making herself so pleasant.

All through the month there were renewed and continual rumours of what the Tsar meant to do. A speech by Lord Farringham might seem to dispose of them, but there were people who did not trust Lord Farringham – who, in fact, knew better. There were telegrams from abroad, there were mysterious paragraphs claiming an authority too high to be disclosed to the vulgar, there were leaders asking whether it were actually the fact that nothing was going to be done; there was an agitation about the Navy, another final exposure of the methods of the War Office, and philosophic attacks on the system of party government. Churchmen began to say that they were also patriots, and dons to remind the country that they were citizens. And – in the end – what did the Tsar mean to do? That Potentate gave no sign. What of that? Had not generals uttered speeches and worked out professional problems? Lord Glentorly ordered extensive manœuvres, and bade the country rely on him. The country seemed a little doubtful; or, anyhow, the Press told it that it was. 'The atmosphere is electric,' declared Mr. Liffey in an article in 'The Sentinel': thousands read it in railway carriages and looked grave; they had not seen Mr. Liffey's smile.

Things were in this condition, and the broadsheets blazing in big letters, when one afternoon a hansom whisked along Wych Street and set down a lady in a very neat grey frock at the entrance of Danes Inn. Trix trod the pavement of that secluded spot and ascended the stairs of 6A with an amusement and excitement far different from Peggy Ryle's matter-of-fact familiarity. She had known lodging-houses; they were as dirty as this, but there the likeness ended. They had been new, flimsy, confined; this looked old, was very solid and relatively spacious; they had been noisy, it was very quiet; they had swarmed with children, here were none; the whole place seemed to her quasi-monastic; she blushed for herself as she passed through. Her knock on Airey Newton's door was timid.

Airey's amazement at the sight of her was unmistakable. He drew back saying:

'Mrs. Trevalla! Is it really you?'

The picture he had in his mind was so different. Where was the forlorn girl in the widow's weeds? This brilliant creature surely was not the same!

But Trix laughed and chattered, insisting that she was herself.

'I couldn't wear mourning all my life, could I?' she asked. 'You didn't mean me to, when we had our talk in Paris?'

'I'm not blaming, only wondering.' For a moment she almost robbed him of speech; he busied himself with the tea (there was a cake to-day) while she flitted about the room, not omitting to include Airey himself in her rapid scrutiny. She marked the shortness of his hair, the trimness of his beard, and approved Peggy's work, little thinking it was Peggy's.