The Awkward Age Part 61

Mrs. Grendon, with so much these past minutes to have made her so, was at last visibly more present. "That's what Lord Petherton says of it.

From what he knows of the author."

"So that he wants to keep her--?"

"Well, from trying it first. I think he wants to see if it's good for her."

"That's one of the most charming soins, I think," the d.u.c.h.ess said, "that a gentleman may render a young woman to whom he desires to be useful. I won't say that Petherton always knows how good a book may be, but I'd trust him any day to say how bad."

Mr. Longdon, who had sat throughout silent and still, quitted his seat at this and evidently in so doing gave Mrs. Brook as much occasion as she required. She also got up and her movement brought to her view at the door of the further room something that drew from her a quick exclamation. "He can tell us now then--for here they come!" Lord Petherton, arriving with animation and followed so swiftly by his young companion that she presented herself as pursuing him, shook triumphantly over his head a small volume in blue paper. There was a general movement at the sight of them, and by the time they had rejoined their friends the company, pus.h.i.+ng back seats and causing a variety of mute expression smoothly to circulate, was pretty well on its feet. "See--he HAS pulled her off!" said Mrs. Brook. "Little Aggie, to whom plenty of pearls were singularly becoming, met it as pleasant sympathy. Yes, and it was a REAL pull. But of course," she continued with the prettiest humour and as if Mrs. Brook would quite understand, "from the moment one has a person's nails, and almost his teeth, in one's flesh--!"

Mrs. Brook's sympathy pa.s.sed, however, with no great ease from Aggie's pearls to her other charms; fixing the former indeed so markedly that Harold had a quick word about it for Lady f.a.n.n.y. "When poor mummy thinks, you know, that Nanda might have had them--!"

Lady f.a.n.n.y's attention, for that matter, had resisted them as little.

"Well, I dare say that if I had wanted _I_ might!"

"Lord--COULD you have stood him?" the young man returned. "But I believe women can stand anything!" he profoundly concluded. His mother meanwhile, recovering herself, had begun to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e on the prints in Aggie's arms, and he was then diverted from the sense of what he "personally," as he would have said, couldn't have stood, by a glance at Lord Petherton's trophy, for which he made a prompt grab. "The bone of contention?" Lord Petherton had let it go and Harold remained arrested by the cover. "Why blest if it hasn't Van's name!"

"Van's?"--his mother was near enough to effect her own s.n.a.t.c.h, after which she swiftly faced the proprietor of the volume. "Dear man, it's the last thing you lent me! But I don't think," she added, turning to Tishy, "that I ever pa.s.sed such a production on to YOU."

"It was just seeing Mr. Van's hand," Aggie conscientiously explained, "that made me think one was free--!"

"But it isn't Mr. Van's hand!"--Mrs. Brook quite smiled at the error.

She thrust the book straight at Mr. Longdon. "IS that Mr. Van's hand?"

Holding the disputed object, which he had put on his nippers to glance at, he presently, without speaking, looked over these aids straight at Nanda, who looked as straight back at him. "It was I who wrote Mr. Van's name." The girl's eyes were on Mr. Longdon, but her words as for the company. "I brought the book here from Buckingham Crescent and left it by accident in the other room."

"By accident, my dear," her mother replied, "I do quite hope. But what on earth did you bring it for? It's too hideous."

Nanda seemed to wonder. "Is it?" she murmured.

"Then you haven't read it?"

She just hesitated. "One hardly knows now, I think, what is and what isn't."

"She brought it only for ME to read," Tishy gravely interposed.

Mrs. Brook looked strange. "Nanda RECOMMENDED it?"

"Oh no--the contrary." Tishy, as if scared by so much publicity, floundered a little. "She only told me--"

"The awful subject?" Mrs. Brook wailed.

There was so deepening an echo of the drollery of this last pa.s.sage that it was a minute before Vanderbank could be heard saying: "The responsibility's wholly mine for setting the beastly thing in motion.

Still," he added good-humouredly and as to minimise if not the cause at least the consequence, "I think I agree with Nanda that it's no worse than anything else."

Mrs. Brook had recovered the volume from Mr. Longdon's relaxed hand and now, without another glance at it, held it behind her with an unusual air of firmness. "Oh how can you say that, my dear man, of anything so revolting?"

The discussion kept them for the instant well face to face. "Then did YOU read it?"

She debated, jerking the book into the nearest empty chair, where Mr.

Cashmore quickly pounced on it. "Wasn't it for that you brought it me?"

she demanded. Yet before he could answer she again challenged her child.

"Have you read this work, Nanda?"

"Yes mamma."

"Oh I say!" cried Mr. Cashmore, hilarious and turning the leaves.

Mr. Longdon had by this time ceremoniously approached Tishy.

"Good-night."

BOOK NINTH. VANDERBANK

I

"I think you had better wait," Mrs. Brook said, "till I see if he has gone;" and on the arrival the next moment of the servants with the tea she was able to put her question. "Is Mr. Cashmore still with Miss Brookenham?"

"No, ma'am," the footman replied. "I let Mr. Cashmore out five minutes ago."

Vanderbank showed for the next short time by his behaviour what he felt at not yet being free to act on this; moving pointlessly about the room while the servants arranged the tea-table and taking no trouble to make, for appearance, any other talk. Mrs. Brook, on her side, took so little that the silence--which their temporary companions had all the effect of keeping up by conscious dawdling--became precisely one of those precious lights for the circle belowstairs which people fondly fancy they have not kindled when they have not spoken. But Vanderbank spoke again as soon as the door was closed. "Does he run in and out that way without even speaking to YOU?"

Mrs. Brook turned away from the fire that, late in May, was the only charm of the crude cold afternoon. "One would like to draw the curtains, wouldn't one? and gossip in the glow of the hearth."

"Oh 'gossip'!" Vanderbank wearily said as he came to her pretty table.

In the act of serving him she checked herself. "You wouldn't rather have it with HER?"

He balanced a moment. "Does she have a tea of her own?"

"Do you mean to say you don't know?"--Mrs. Brook asked it with surprise.

"Such ignorance of what I do for her does tell, I think, the tale of how you've lately treated us."

"In not coming for so long?"

"For more weeks, for more months than I can count. Scarcely since--when was it?--the end of January, that night of Tishy's dinner."

"Yes, that awful night."

"Awful, you call it?"

"Awful."

"Well, the time without you," Mrs. Brook returned, "has been so bad that I'm afraid I've lost the impression of anything before." Then she offered the tea to his choice. "WILL you have it upstairs?"