The Sentimental Adventures of Jimmy Bulstrode Part 25

It was with the greatest difficulty that Bulstrode could at any time bring to his lips even the name of the woman he loved. At this moment the vision of her as he had seen her lately on her husband's arm going in under the pavilion of the hotel crossed his mind with a cruel despair and cruel disgust. A sense of his solitude, of his defrauded life, rushed over him as he looked into the eyes of this woman who loved him.

"No," he said intensely, "I do not know, I do not know. I have a code of honor a million years old, but I live up to it. She is a wife, I have never told her that I love her."

The girl's incredulity and surprise were great. It showed in the smile which, something like happiness, crossed her lips. She drew a long breath; she held his eyes with hers, then she laid both her arms around his neck and Bulstrode bent and kissed her. He held her for one moment and his heart, if it beat for another woman, beat hard and fast and its pulse ran through her own. Then Felicia heard the door close and the footsteps of the man died away.

It was seven o'clock when Bulstrode found himself out in the streets.

The fresh air in a keen, salt wind poured over him. Down on the beach, for a couple of francs he bribed an attendant to open a bath-house for him, and a few moments later, s.h.i.+vering a little in the keen air, he could have been seen running down to the sea, and in a few moments more his strong swift strokes had carried him far out into the waters which the summer sun even at this early hour was fast turning into blue.

When Jimmy came to himself, he found that without either seeing Mrs.

Falconer again or having even bidden a decent good-bye or G.o.dspeed to his fiancee, he was back again in Paris. He had run away. Well, that wasn't any new thing, he was always at it. Paris, in the month of August, gave him a hot, desolate welcome, and it was with difficulty that he could find a lawyer who would help him down to bedrock and put in motion the business of winding up the affairs of Molly and her Marquis.

De Presle-Vaulx came to town and found his champion there and brought him many messages from the ladies as well as a letter which Bulstrode put in his pocket to read down in the country at the chateau of Vaulxgoron in the seclusion of his own room.

Bulstrode played the part of the "American Uncle" to perfection. He let the old Marquis beat him at backgammon; he wandered all over the property with the Marquise. He bought the young man for Molly Malines and closed up his beneficent affairs in a very decent manner indeed, but on the night when Mrs. Falconer and Miss Malines should have arrived at the chateau, Bulstrode ran away again. From then on he became a wandering Jew. He ran up to Norway, fished a little, then took a motor and some people, who did not know any one whom he had ever known, and drove them through Italy. He continued to travel a little longer, working his way northward until finally--so he put it--dusty as "Dusty Dog Dingo," tired as "Tired Dog Dingo," Bulstrode found himself in London, drew a deep breath and capitulated.

THE SIXTH ADVENTURE

VI

IN WHICH HE DISCARDS A KNAVE AND SAVES A QUEEN

The morning he left for Westboro' Castle, Bulstrode remembers as being the most beautiful of days; it came to him like a golden gift of unrivalled loveliness as it broke and showered sunlight over England.

"The very crannies of the island," he smiled at his own conceit, "must filter out this gold to the sea."

England lay like a viking's cup full to the brim of sunlight; especially entrancing because unusual in the British calendar, and enchanting to the American gentleman because it absolutely accorded with his own mood.

It was middle November, and yet there was not--so it seemed as one looked at yellow and copper luxuriance--a leaf lost from the suave harmony of the trees. Farms, tiled and thatched, basked in summery warmth, forest, hedge and copse, full-foliaged and abundant, shone out in copper and bronze, and the air's stillness, the patient tranquillity, enfolding the land, made it seem expectantly to wait for some sudden wind that should ultimately cast devastation through the forests.

On leaving his s.h.i.+p at Plymouth the day before, Bulstrode found amongst other letters in his mail the Duke of Westboro's invitation for a week's shooting in the west of England: "There were sure to be heaps of people Jimmy would know"--and Bulstrode eagerly read the subjoined list of names until he saw in a flash the name of the One Woman in the World. He at once telegraphed his acceptance.

The following afternoon he threw his evening papers and overcoat into a first-cla.s.s carriage whilst the guard placed his valise and dressing-case in the rack.

As there had been several minutes to starting time, he had not immediately taken his seat, but had stood smoking by the side of his carriage. He might, and did, doubtless, pa.s.s with others of the well set-up, well-looking men travelling on that day, for an Englishman, but closer observation showed his attire to be distinguished by that personal note which marks the cosmopolitan whose taste has been more or less tempted by certain fantasies of other countries. Bulstrode's clothes were brown, his gloves, cravat, and boots all in the same color scheme--one mentions a man's dress only on rare occasions, as on this certain day one has been led to mention the weather. That a man is perfectly turned out should, like the weather, be taken for granted.

Bulstrode on this day, travelling as he was towards a goal, towards the one person he wanted above all to see, had spent some unusual thought on his toilet. At all events, on pa.s.sing a florist's in Piccadilly, after giving his order for flowers to be boxed and expressed to Westboro', he had selected a tiny reddish-brown chrysanthemum which now covered the b.u.t.ton-hole of his coat's lapel; it created a distinctive scheme of color. In point of fact it caught the eye of the lady who, hurrying from the waiting-room towards the Westboro' express, caught sight of the American and started. It appeared as if she would speak to him, half advanced, thought better of it, and said to the guard, who was about to fasten a placard on the window of a carriage:

"Please---just a second--won't you, guard?"

The bell rang, and Bulstrode found himself helping the lady into his own compartment. The guard shut the door, which closed with the customary soft thick sound of a lock setting, and pasted over the window the exclusive and forbidding paper--RESERVED.

Then it was in his corner by the window, once chimney pots and suburbs left behind, that the traveller to Westboro' watched the landscape with the pale, transparent smoke from the little farms floating like veils across the golden atmosphere; the slow winding streams between low-bushed, rosy sh.o.r.es, and red-tinged thickets; the flocks of rooks across fields long harvested: the flocks of sheep on the gently swelling downs.

"England, England," he murmured, as if it were a refrain in whose melody he found much charm, as if his traditions of insular forebears might in some way be recalled in the word, as if it spoke more than a chance traveller's appreciation for the melodious countryside.

He had letters, read them, and put his correspondence aside, then comfortably settling himself in his corner, began to construct for himself a picture of Westboro', whose lines and architecture he knew from photographs, although he had never been there. It was agreeable to him as he mused to fancy himself for the first time with Mrs.

Falconer in England, in the country they preferred to all the others in the Old World. They were in sympathy with English life and manners, and here, if (oh, of course, a world of "ifs")--here no doubt they would both choose to live when abroad, were there any choice for them of mutual life.

Westboro' is Elizabethan and of vast proportions. The house would naturally be very full--how much of the time would they discover for themselves? There would decidedly be occasions. Mary Falconer did not hunt, and although Jimmy Bulstrode could recall having postulated that "there are only two real occupations for a real man--to kill and to love," he also knew what precedence he himself gave, and how little the sportsmen of Westboro' would have cause to fear his concurrence if by lucky chance in more or less of solitude he should find his lady there.

It was months since he had seen Mrs. Falconer--months. It had been a long exile. Each time that he started out to run away, it was just that--running away--it was with a curious wonder whether or not on his return he should not find a change. Time and absence--above all, time, worked extraordinary infidelities in other people. Why should they two believe themselves immune? The long months might have altered _her_.

The mischief was yet to be seen. But when in the list of n.o.ble names he had in his hand, his eyes fell upon the single prefix--_Mrs._--and found it followed by _The Name_, if he had not sincerely known before, his pulse at sight of the written words told Jimmy that he had not, at all events, changed!

Thinking at this point to light a cigarette, he became at the second mindful of the other pa.s.senger in his carriage and that they were alone. As he looked across towards the lady who had unwound her dark veil, he observed that she was herself smoking, holding the cigarette in her hand as with head turned from him she scanned the landscape through the window of the compartment.

He saw with a little start of pleasure what a delight she gave to the eye, tastefully dressed as she too was, in leaf brown from head to foot, with the slightest indication of forest green at b.u.t.tons and hem of her dress. Her hat, with its drooping feathers, fell rather low over her wonderful hair, bronze in its reflections. Indeed, the lady blended well with the November landscape, and as she apparently was not conscious of her companion, he enjoyed the harmonious note she made to the full.

"What scope," he mused, "what scope they all have--and how prettily they most of them know it! So just to sit and be a thing of beauty; with head half-drooping, and eyelash meditative, one hand ungloved, and such a perfectly lovely hand...! (It held the half-smoked cigarette, but his taste was not offended.) He thought her a whim too debonnaire for a Parisian of the best world, and of _that_ she most distinctly was--Austrian more than likely. Every woman has her history--only when she is part of several has she a past. What had this woman so to meditate upon? She turned and he met her eyes.

"You have naturally waited for me to speak first," she said with a gracious gesture of her bare hand. "And _I_ was waiting till you should have finished your letters! I, too, have wanted to think."

Her familiar address, perfectly courteous and made in a pleasant voice, with a very slight accent, was a surprise to her companion, who mechanically lifted his hat as he bowed to her across the narrow distance between their seats.

"The guard," she smiled, "came very near putting the placard on the other window! But I think we are now quite sure to be alone!" She pointed to the seat opposite. "Sit there," she more commanded than permitted, "we can talk better and I can watch your kind face, which always looks as if you understood--and I shall be able to please you better--perhaps to make you not unkind to me."

He obeyed, taking the place indicated without hesitation, and as he sat facing her, he saw her to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. There was at once something dazzling about her--and at the same time familiar... He had surely met her, and not long ago. Where?

And how stupid of him to have forgotten! Or had he only seen her photograph and remarked her as a celebrity whose type of looks had pleased him? But no, she knew him: that was clear. He met her friendly eyes, where liking was evident as well as the suggestion of something akin to an appeal. Bulstrode was greatly intrigued.

"Unkind?" he repeated vaguely. "But why should you think that? Please me?"--and his graciousness did not fall short of her own--"But why should you...?"

"Oh, true," she interrupted him, "quite true. There is no reason why--" and she made a rather petulant gesture--"yet every woman wants to please, and none of us relishes being judged. Never mind, however, don't think of me as a _person_--just let me talk to you frankly, be myself for once with someone if I can."

Jimmy Bulstrode gathered himself together and sat back in his corner.

She was very lovely at it, this being herself. Gallantry would not let him bluntly tell her that she had made a mistake. A second more would clear the matter and would be quite soon enough, for him at least, to find that they were total strangers. Unless, indeed, he had met her and forgotten it. They had possibly held some conversation together in a London drawing-room. But how could he have been such a boor as to forget her? She was neither a crook nor a mad woman--she might be an adventuress; if so, she was an unusual one. He glanced at her luggage as if it might help him--a dark-covered dressing-case, bundle of furs, and rugs--new, everything new. Her left hand was bare of rings, she clasped it with her gloved fellow and said warmly:

"I can't believe it possible that you came, actually came, and that we have so smoothly met! I can't believe nothing has. .h.i.tched or missed, or that everything is so cleverly planned and arranged for me, and least of all I can believe that it should be _you_ who are so sublimely doing this."

"Ah--" But here Bulstrode tardily started up. _He_ doing it all? At least if he was, then he must, if nothing else--know! He smiled at her with a pleasant sense of being in the secret and with indulgent amus.e.m.e.nt at her mistake.

"I think--you made a mistake," he began it with commonplaceness, but his gesture softened the words.

But the lady made a little annoyed "tchk" with her tongue against her teeth, and threw up her head with an impatient toss, an intensely foreign way of dismissing his interpolation.

"Don't, in pity's sake, talk like this," she exclaimed. "_Mistake_?

Who under the blue heavens _doesn't_ make them--Certa! Haven't you, yourself, in spite of your moral, spotless life, haven't even _you_ made them?"

"How," flushed the nave gentleman, on the sudden betrayed into a mental frankness of self-approval near to conceit, "how does _she_ know me so well?"

"Who is there," his companion gave him the question in a challenging tone "to tell each other and every one of us what is or will be a mistake in his life? Where were everyone's eyes when I married?--Why didn't someone tell me then that my marriage was a hideous mistake? As for the rest of it..." she turned away for a second towards the window, and Bulstrode saw how the hot blood had mounted and her eyes had changed when after a moment she came back to him again. She put out towards him a beseeching hand: "_You_ above all men, who are faithful to an ideal, must not give me old plat.i.tudes!"

Bulstrode's head reeled. He felt like a man who after a narcotic finds his brain suddenly alight and real things grow strange. He wanted to rub his eyes. She appeared singularly to appreciate his daze.

"It is as strange to me as it is to you, to find myself here with a man to whom I have never spoken before--to be under his protection, and to talk with him like this; and yet I have seen you so often, I have watched you in the distance, and long since I singled you out as the one man in whom I could fancy confiding--the one man to whom I could give a sacred trust."