Poppy Part 47

"You are certainly plain spoken," said she, smiling. "But I want to tell you--I've taken a little house. I've just been there with the painter, and it's all going to be ready by the end of the week."

"Where is it?"

"Facing the bay--a funny little bungalow-cottage, with an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden and a straggly path through sea-pinks right down to nearly the edge of the waves."

"It sounds altogether too romantic for Durban. I expect these features exist only in your imagination. But can you possibly mean Briony Cottage?"

"But, of course."

"Good--it _is_ a dear little place--and with the bay right before you, you'll hardly know you're down in the town."

"I'm having a companion." She made a mouth, and Bramham himself could not disguise a faint twist of his smile.

"Mrs. Portal said it was necessary, if I didn't want to be black-balled by the Durban ladies, so she found me a Miss Allendner, a nice little old thing, who is lonely and unattached, but eminently respectable and _genteel_."

"Ah! I know her--a weary sort of plucked turkey," said the graceless Bramham, "with a nose that was once too much exposed to the winter winds and has never recovered. Never mind, you'll need someone to keep off the crowd as soon as they find out who you are----"

"But they are not going to find out! Charlie, I see that I must speak to you seriously about this. I believe you think my not wanting to be known is affectation; it is nothing of the kind. It is _most imperative_ that my ident.i.ty should be kept secret. I must tell you the reason at last--I am working now for money to fight out a case in the Law Courts before anyone in Africa knows who I am. Under my own name no one will recognise me or be particularly interested; but, of course, pleading as _Eve Destiny_ would be another matter. I couldn't keep that quiet."

"A law case! Great-- Well, Rosalind," he said ironically, "you certainly do spring some surprises on me. Is it about your plays? Why can't you let me manage it for you? But what kind of case can it be?"

"A divorce case--or, rather, I think a nullity case is what it would be called."

"A _what_?" Bramham could say no more.

"Don't look at me like that, best of friends ... I know, I know, you are beginning to think I am not worth your friends.h.i.+p ... that I don't seem to understand even the first principles of friends.h.i.+p--honesty and candour!... Try and have patience with me, Charlie.... Perhaps I _ought_ to have told you before ... but I've never told a single soul ... in fact, I have always refused to consider that I am married. It is a long story, and includes part of my childhood. The man who adopted me and brought me up in an old farmhouse in the Transvaal allowed me to go through a marriage ceremony with him without my knowing what I was doing ... an old French priest married us ... he couldn't speak a word of English ... only Kaffir ... and he married us in French, which I could not understand at that time. Afterwards, my life went on as usual, and for years I continued to look upon the man simply as my guardian.

At last, here in Durban, when I was just eighteen, he suddenly sprang the story upon me, and claimed me for his wife. I was horrified, revolted ... my liking for him, which arose entirely from grat.i.tude, turned to detestation on hearing it.... I believed myself to have been merely trapped. In any case, whatever I might have felt for him didn't matter then. It was too late. I belonged to ... the man you know I belong to ... I didn't know what to do at first. There were terrible circ.u.mstances in connection with ... the man I love ... which made me think sometimes that I could never meet him again ... I would just keep the soul he had waked in me, and live for work and Fame. But the man I was married to wanted to keep me to my bond ... and then suddenly he found out ... something ... I don't quite know how it came to pa.s.s, but he _knew_ ... I was obliged to fly from his house half clad.... It was _then_ I found refuge with Sophie Cornell."

"And these things all happened here? Do you mean to tell me that blackguard was some Durban fellow?"

"He did live here at that time."

"And now?"

"He appears to be here still ... I saw him the other day. He behaved to me as though I were really Miss Chard ... but I know him. He will fight tooth and nail ... I don't suppose he cares about me in the least, but he will lie his soul away, I believe, and spend his last penny for revenge."

"Well, upon my soul! I can't think who the fellow can be!" said Bramham artlessly, and Poppy could not refrain from smiling.

"I don't think there would be any good in telling you, Charlie. You may know him ... in fact, you are sure to, in a small place like this ...

and it would only make things difficult for you."

Bramham was plainly vexed that she did not confide in him, but she was perfectly well aware that he knew Abinger intimately, and fearing that something might leak out and spoil her plans, she decided not to tell him.

"You should have tackled the thing at home," said Bramham thoughtfully.

"They'd have fixed you up in no time there, I believe."

"No, I had advice about it, and was told that as the ceremony had taken place in the Transvaal, and the man is out here, I must go to the Rand Courts ... and, by the way, I must tell you--I wrote to the mission monastery which the old priest belonged to and made inquiries. They wrote back that old Father Eugene was dead, but that they had already gone into the matter on behalf of _my husband_, who had made representations to them. That they could only inform me that the ceremony performed by the Father was absolutely valid, and they were prepared to uphold it in every way. They added that they were well aware that it was my intention to try and disprove the marriage and for my own purposes escape from my sacred bond, but that I must not expect any a.s.sistance from them in my immoral purpose.... So, you see, I have them to fight as well. Another thing is, that the only other witness to the ceremony was a woman who would swear her soul away at the bidding of the man who calls himself my husband."

"By Jove! It looks as if you're up against a tough proposition, as they say in America!" was Bramham's verdict at last. "But you'll pull through, I'm certain, and you've pluck enough. As for money--well, you know that I am not poor----"

He stopped, staring at her pale face.

"Don't ever offer to lend me money," she said fiercely rudely.

"Why, you let me lend you some before! And were unusual enough to pay it back." Smiling broadly, he added: "I never had such a thing happen to me before!" But she would not smile. The subject seemed an unfortunate one, for she did not regain her joyous serenity during the rest of the interview.

He went home wrapped in cogitation, turning over in his mind the name of every man in the place on the chance of its being the name of the culprit. Abinger's name, amongst others, certainly came up for consideration, but was instantly dismissed as an impossibility, for he had plainly given everyone to understand that--after the time of his disappearance from the Rand, until his readvent in Durban on the day Bramham had met him coming off the Mail-boat--he had been travelling abroad, and there was no reason to disbelieve this statement. Moreover, Bramham was aware of other facts in Abinger's private life which made it seem absolutely impossible that he could be the villain of Rosalind Chard's tale.

The day Poppy moved to her new home, Clem Portal was the first person to visit her and wish her luck and happiness there.

They took tea in the largest room in the house, which was to be Poppy's working-room and study. It was long and low, with two bay-windows, and the walls had been distempered in pale soft grey. The floor was dark and polished, and the only strong note of colour in the room a rose-red Persian rug before the quaint fireplace. The chintzes Poppy had come upon with great joy in one of the local shops: ivory-white with green ivy leaves scattered over them--a great relief from the everlasting pink roses of the usual chintz. The grey walls were guileless of pictures, except for the faithful blue _Hope_ which overhung the fireplace above vases full of tall fronds of maidenhair-fern, and some full-length posters of the Beardsley school in black-and-white wash.

Poppy's writing-table was in one window, and on the wall where she could always see it while at work was a water-colour of a little boy standing in a field of corn and poppies. The tea-table was in the other window.

She and Clem sat looking at the blue bay flapping and rippling under the afternoon sunlight, with the long bluff ridge sleeping sullenly beyond.

"You've found the sweetest place in Durban," said Clem. "Whenever I feel like a mealie--a _green_ mealie--which, alas! is very often, I shall sneak down here to 'simplify, simplify.' While you work I'll sit in the sun in the Yogi att.i.tude and triumphantly contemplate eternity and jelly-fish."

Later, she said:

"Mary Cap.r.o.n wanted to come too, but I told her I must have you all to myself to-day. I'm afraid she was rather hurt, but ... I was not sure whether you liked her, Poppy. I do hope you are going to, dear, for I love her, and we shall be a triangle with sore corners, if you _don't_."

Poppy was dreaming with her tea-cup in her lap, and the glitter of the bay in her eyes.

"Do you think three women ever get on well together?" she asked evasively. "There is always one out."

Clem was quick to see the meaning of this. A look of disappointment came over her gay, gentle face.

"Mary and I have been friends for years," she said. "She is the only woman I have never had any inspiration about; but though I am blinded by her beauty, I know her to be good and true. It would be a terribly disloyal thing if I deserted her for you ... what am I to do if you two don't like each other?"

"If _you_ love Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, Clem, she won't need to bother about the liking of a woman like me."

"She likes _you_, however. And I'm sure when you get to know her better, you'll like her.... I daresay when two beautiful women first meet, a feeling of antagonism is natural. But _you_ should be above that, Poppy.

And poor Mary is a subject for pity rather than dislike--any woman is who has drawn blank in the big lottery. I daresay you know _that_ about her--most people do."

"I have gathered that she is not very happily married," said Poppy.

"Have you ever seen him?"

"I believe the first time I ever saw you, Clem, he was with you."

"Ah, yes, I remember now--and we talked of you, the girl with the Burne-Jones eyes." Most women would have made this an easy stepping-stone into the flowing brook of confidences, and found out where Poppy was going to on that sunny day, and where she had been all the long years since; but Clem Portal had an instinct about questions that hurt. Her husband often said of her:

"She is that lovely thing--a close woman!" Now, the peculiarity of a close woman is that she neither probes into the dark deeps of others, nor allows herself to be probed.

"Nick Cap.r.o.n was not _quite_ impossible in those days," she continued; "but now a good place for him would be under the debris heaps outside de Beers'. When she first met him he was a romantic character on the down-grade. Had been all over the world and gone through every kind of adventure; lost a fortune at Monte-Carlo on a system of his own for breaking the bank; written a book (or more probably got it written for him) about his adventures as a cowboy in Texas; and made quite a name for himself as a scout in the war between Chili and Peru. Amongst other things he has an intimate knowledge of torpedoes and is supposed to have been the author of the plan that sent the Chilian transport, the _Loa_, to the bottom by a torpedo launched from an apparently harmless fruit-boat. At any rate, he was seen on the fruit-boat, and when he came to Africa shortly afterwards, they said it was to escape the vengeance of the Chilians. Mary, who was on a visit to this country, met him at the Cape when everyone was talking about him. Unfortunately, when women hear sparkling things about a man, they do not always think to inquire about the sparkling things he drinks--and how much _that_ has to do with the matter. She fell in love with him, or his reputation, and they were married in a great whirl of romantic emotion. Well, you know what happens to people who engage in whirling?"

Poppy looked up, anxious to learn, and Clem continued with the air of an oracle of Thebes: