The Splendid Folly Part 13

"Please let me play for you," he said simply.

There was a note of appeal in his voice--rather as if he were seeking to soften her resentment against him, and would regard the permission to accompany her as a token of forgiveness. She met his glance, wavered a moment, then bent her head in silence, and each of them was conscious that in some mysterious way, without the interchange of further words, an armistice had been declared between them.

With Errington at the piano the music took on a different aspect. He was an incomparable accompanist, and Diana, feeling herself supported, and upborne, sang with a beauty of interpretation, an intensity of feeling, that had been impossible before. And through it all she was acutely conscious of Max Errington's proximity--knew instinctively that the pa.s.sion of the song was shaking him equally with herself. It was as though some intangible live wire were stretched between them so that each could sense the emotion of the other--as though the garment with which we so persistently conceal our souls from one another's eyes were suddenly stripped away.

There was a tense look in Max's face as the last note trembled into silence, and Diana, meeting his glance, flushed rosily.

"I can't sing any more," she said, her voice uneven.

"No."

He added nothing to the laconic negative, but his eyes held hers remorselessly.

Then Pobs' cheerful tones fell on their ears and the taut moment pa.s.sed.

"Di, you amazing child!" he exclaimed delightfully. "Where did you find a voice like that? I realise now that we've been entertaining genius unawares all this time. Joan, my dear, henceforth two commonplace bodies like you and me must resign ourselves to taking a back seat."

"I don't mind," returned Joan philosophically. "I think I was born with a humdrum nature; a quiet life was always my idea of bliss."

"Sing something else, Di," begged Stair. But Diana shook her head.

"I'm too tired, Pobs," she said quietly. Turning abruptly to Errington she continued: "Will you play instead?"

Max hesitated a moment, then resumed his place at the piano, and, after a pause, the three grave notes with which Rachmaninoff's wonderful "Prelude" opens, broke the silence.

It was speedily evident that Errington was a musician of no mean order; indeed, many a professional reputation has been based on a less solid foundation. The Rachmaninoff was followed by Chopin, Tchaikowsky, Debussy, and others of the modern school, and when finally he dropped his hands from the piano, laughingly declaring that he must be thinking of taking his departure before he played them all to sleep, Joan burst out bluntly:--

"We understood you were a dramatist, Mr. Errington. It seems to me you have missed your vocation."

Every one laughed.

"Rather a two-edged compliment, I'm afraid, Joan," chuckled Stair delightfully.

Joan blushed, overcome with confusion, and remained depressed until Errington, on the point of leaving, rea.s.sured her good-humouredly.

"Don't brood over your father's unkind references to two-edged compliments, Miss Stair. I entirely decline to see any but one meaning to your speech--and that a very pleasant one."

He shook hands with the Rector and Diana, holding the latter's hand an instant longer than was absolutely necessary, to ask, rather low:--

"Is it peace, then?"

But the softening spell of the music was broken, and Diana felt her resentment against him rise up anew.

Silently she withdrew her hand, refusing him an answer, defying him with a courage born of the near neighbourhood of the Rector and Joan, and a few minutes later the hum of his motor could be heard as it sped away down the drive.

Diana lay long awake that night, her thoughts centred round the man who had come so strangely into her life. It was as though he had been forced thither by a resistless fate which there was no eluding--for, on his own confession, he had deliberately sought to avoid meeting her again.

His whole att.i.tude was utterly incomprehensible--a study of violently opposing contrasts. Diana felt bruised and shaken by the fierce contradictions of his moods, the temperamental heat and ice which he had meted out to her. It seemed as if he were fighting against the attraction she had for him, prepared to contest every inch of ground--discounting each look and word wrung from him in some moment of emotion by the mocking raillery with which he followed it up.

More than once he had hinted at some barrier, spoken of a shadow that dogged his steps, as if complete freedom of action were denied him.

Could it be--was it conceivable, that he was already married? And at the thought Diana hid hot cheeks against her pillow, living over again that moment in the car--that moment which had suddenly called into being emotions before whose overmastering possibilities she trembled.

At length, mentally and physically weary, she dropped into an uneasy slumber, vaguely wondering what the morrow would bring forth.

It brought the unexpected news that the occupants of Red Gables had suddenly left for London by the morning train.

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. LAWRENCE'S HOSPITALITY

"_An Officer's Widow offers hospitality to students and professional women. Excellent cuisine; man-servant; moderate terms. Apply: Mrs. L., 24 Brutton Square, N.W._"

So ran the advertis.e.m.e.nt which Mrs. Lawrence periodically inserted in one of the leading London dailies. She was well-pleased with the wording of it, considering that it combined both veracity and attractiveness--two things which do not invariably run smoothly in conjunction with each other.

The opening phrase had reference to the fact that her husband, the defunct major, had been an army doctor, and the word hospitality pleasantly suggested the idea of a home from home, whilst the afterthought conveyed by the moderate terms delicately indicated that the hospitality was not entirely of a gratuitous nature. The man-servant, on closer inspection, resolved himself into a French-Swiss waiter, whose agility and condition were such that he could negotiate the whole ninety stairs of the house, three at a time, without once pausing for breath till he reached the top.

Little Miss Bunting, the lady-help, who lived with Mrs. Lawrence on the understanding that she gave "a.s.sistance in light household duties in return for hospitality," was not quite so nimble as Henri, the waiter, and often found her heart beating quite uncomfortably fast by the time she had climbed the ninety stairs to the little cupboard of a room which Mrs. Lawrence's conception of hospitality allotted for her use. She did the work of two servants and ate rather less than one, and, seeing that she received no wages and was incurably conscientious, Mrs. Lawrence found the arrangement eminently satisfactory. Possibly Miss Bunting herself regarded the matter with somewhat less enthusiasm, but she was a plucky little person and made no complaint. As she wrote to her invalid mother, shortly after taking up her duties at Brutton Square: "After all, dearest of little mothers, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, and I'm not costing you anything except a few pounds for my clothes. And perhaps when I leave here, if Mrs. Lawrence gives me a good reference, I shall be able to get a situation with a salary attached to it."

So Miss Bunting stuck to her guns and spent her days in supplementing the deficiencies of careless servants, smoothing the path of the boarders, and generally enabling Mrs. Lawrence to devote much more time to what she termed her "social life" than would otherwise have been the case.

The boarders usually numbered anything from twelve to fifteen--all of the gentler s.e.x--and were composed chiefly of students at one or other of the London schools of art or music, together with a sprinkling of visiting teachers of various kinds, and one or two young professional musicians whose earnings did not yet warrant their launching out into the independence of flat life. This meant that three times a year, when the schools closed for their regular vacations, a general exodus took place from 24 Brutton Square, and Mrs. Lawrence was happily enabled to go away and visit her friends, leaving the conscientious Miss Bunting to look after the reduced establishment and cater for the one or two remaining boarders who were not released by regular holidays. It was an admirable arrangement, profitable without being too exigeant.

At the end of each vacation Mrs. Lawrence always summoned Miss Bunting to her presence and ran through the list of boarders for the coming term, noting their various requirements. She was thus occupied one afternoon towards the end of April. The spring suns.h.i.+ne poured in through the windows, lending an added cheerfulness of aspect to the rooms of the tall London house that made them appear worth quite five s.h.i.+llings a week more than was actually charged for them, and Mrs. Lawrence smiled, well satisfied.

She was a handsome woman, still in the early forties, and the word "stylish" inevitably leaped to one's mind at the sight of her full, well-corseted figure, fas.h.i.+onable raiment, and carefully coiffured hair.

There was nothing whatever of the boarding-house keeper about her; in fact, at first sight, she rather gave the impression of a pleasant, sociable woman who, having a house somewhat larger than she needed for her own requirements, accepted a few paying guests to keep the rooms aired.

This was just the impression she wished to convey, and it was usually some considerable time before her boarders grasped the fact that they were dealing with, a thoroughly shrewd, calculating business woman, who was bent on making every penny out of them that she could, compatibly with running the house on such lines as would ensure its answering to the advertised description.

"I'm glad it's a sunny day," she remarked to Miss Bunting. "First impressions are everything, and that pupil of Signor Baroni's, Miss Quentin, arrives to-day. I hope her rooms are quite ready?"

"Quite, Mrs. Lawrence," replied the lady-help. "I put a few flowers in the vases just to make it look a little home-like."

"Very thoughtful of you, Miss Bunting," Mrs. Lawrence returned graciously. "Miss Quentin's is rather a special case. To begin with, she has engaged a private sitting-room, and in addition to that she was recommended to come here by Signor Baroni himself."

The good word of a teacher of such standing as Baroni was a matter of the first importance to a lady offering a home from home to musical students, though possibly had Mrs. Lawrence heard the exact form taken by Baroni's recommendation she might have felt less elated.

"The Lawrence woman is a bit of a shark, my dear," he had told Diana, when she had explained that, owing to the retirement from business of her former landlady, she would be compelled after Easter to seek fresh rooms.

"But she caters specially for musical students, and as she is therefore obliged to keep the schools pleased, she feeds her boarders, on the whole, better than do most of her species. And remember, my dear Mees Quentin, that good food, and plenty of good food, means--voice."

So Diana had nodded and written to Mrs. Lawrence to ask if a bed-room and sitting-room opening one into the other could be at her disposal, receiving an affirmative reply.

"Regarding coals, Miss Bunting," proceeded Mrs. Lawrence thoughtfully, "I told Miss Quentin that the charge would be sixpence per scuttle." (This was in pre-war times, it must be remembered, and the scuttles were of painfully meagre proportions.) "It might be as well to put that large coal-box in her room--you know the one I mean--and make the charge eightpence."

The box in question was certainly of imposing exterior proportions, but its tin lining was of a quite different domestic period and made no pretensions as to fitting. It lay loosely inside its sham mahogany casing like the shrivelled kernel of a nut in its sh.e.l.l.