Winding Paths Part 6

He tried to persuade her to make a friend of a certain Doris Hayward, instead of Lorraine.

Doris's brother had been Dudley's great friend in the days when both were articled to the same profession, but a terrible accident had later lain him on an invalid couch for the rest of his life.

When clerk of the works of one of London's great buildings, a heavy crane had slipped and swung sideways, flinging him into the street below. He was picked up and carried into the nearest hospital, apparently dead, but he had presently come back, almost from the grave, to drag out a weary life as an incurable on an invalid sofa.

Soon afterwards his father died, leaving Basil and his two sisters the poor pittance of 50 a year between them.

Ethel, the elder, was already a Civil Service clerk at the General Post Office, earning 110 a year, and on these two sums they had to subsist as best they could.

Basil earned occasional guineas for copying work, when he was well enough to stand the strain, and Doris remained at home with him in the little Holloway flat, as nurse and housekeeper.

Dudley, with his usual lack of comprehension where women were concerned, evolved what seemed to him an admirable plan, in which Hal and Doris became great friends, thereby brightening poor Doris's dull existence, and weaning Hal from her allegiance to the unstatisfactory Lorraine.

His plans, however, quickly met with the discouragement and downfall inevitable from the beginning. At first he tried strategy, and Hal, in a good-tempered, careless way, merely listened, while easily avoiding any encounter.

Then Dudley went a step too far.

"I have to be out three evenings this week, so I asked Doris Hayward to come and keep you company, as I thought you might be dull."

"You asked Doris to come and keep _me_ company!" repeated Hal, quite taken aback.

"Yes; why not? She is such a nice girl, and just your age. I can't think why you are not greater friends."

"It's pretty apparent," with a little curl of her lips.

"We haven't anything in common: that's all."

"But why haven't you? You can't possibly know if you never meet. She seems such a far more sensible friend for you than Lorraine Vivian,"

with a shade of irritation.

"Probably that is exactly why I don't want her friends.h.i.+p," with a light laugh.

"But you might try to be reasonable just once in a way. Try to be friendly to-morrow evening."

Hal, with her quick, light gracefulness, crossed to him, and playfully gave him a little shake.

"Dudley, you dear old idiot. I don't know about being reasonable, but I can certainly be honest; and it's honest I'm going to be now. I think it is almost a slur on Lorraine to mention a little, silly, dolly-faced, conceited creature like Doris in the same breath; and as for being friendly to her to-morrow evening, that's impossible, because I shall not be here. I'm going to the Denisons, and I don't intend to postpone it. You will have to write and tell her I am engaged."

Dudley's mouth quickly a.s.sumed the rigidity which denoted he was greatly displeased, and his voice was frigid as he replied:

"You are very injust to Doris. You scarcely know her, and yet you condemn her offhand: the fault you are always finding in me. As for any comparison between her and Miss Vivian, it is very certain she would not sell herself to a man, and then run away from him because things did not turn out as she wanted them."

Hal turned away, with a slight shrug and a humorous expression as of helplessness.

"We won't argue, _mon frere_, because, since you always read books instead of people, you are not very well up in the subject. To put it both candidly and vulgarly, I haven't any use for Doris Hayward at all.

Ethel I admire tremendously, though I don't think she likes me; and Basil is a saint straight out of heaven, suffering martyrdom for no conceivable reason, but Doris is like a useless ornamental china shepherdess, which ought to be put on a hight shelf where it can't get itself nor any one else into trouble. I'm really dreadfully afraid if I had to spend a whole evening alone with her, I should drop her and break her to relieve my feelings."

"Well, you needn't worry" - moving coldly away. "I have far too much respect for Doris to allow her to come here just to be criticised by you. I will explain that you are unexpectedly engaged," and he openend a paper in a manner to close the conversation.

Hal made a little grimace at him behind it, and retired discreetly to prepare for her daily sojourn in the City.

It happened, however, when, a year later, Lorraine came back to take up her theatrical career again in England, there was some vague change in her that made Dudley less severe in his criticisms. Trouble had not hardened her, nor softened her, but it had made her a little less sure of herself, and a little more willing to please.

Hitherto she had taken rather a pleasure in shocking Dudley, under the impression that it would do him good and open his mind a little. Now she had a greater respect for his sterling side, and could smile kindly at his little foibles and fads. The result was that Dudley admitted, a trifle grudgingly, she had changed for the better, and rather looked forward to the occasional evenings she spent with Hal at their Bloomsbury apartments.

He also had to admit that success had in no wise spoilt her, that it probably never would. The year of absence, it was soon seen, had not injured her reputation in the least. She came back to the stage renewed and invigorated, and with still more of that depth of feeling and atmosphere of soul wich had so enriched her personations before.

She became, very speedily, without any question, one of the leading actressess of the day; and the veil of mystery that hung over the sudden termination of her short married life, if anything, enhanced her charm to a mystery-loving public. And all the time, as Dudley could not but see, she never changed to Hal.

From adulation and adoration, from triumphs that might easily turn any head she always came quickly back to the little Bloomsbury sitting-room when she could, to have one of their old gay gossips and merry laughs.

She seemed in some way to find a rest there that she could not get elsewhere, in the company of people who expected her to live up to a recognised standard of individuality.

And the change in Lorraine was a change for the better in Hal too, who began now to tone down a little, and at the same time to strenghten and deepen in character.

They were, in fact, a pair it was good to see and good to know. In the first few years after the break-up of her home Lorraine was at her handsomest. Her dark, thick hair had a gloss on it that in some lights showed like a bronze glow, and she wore it in thick coils round her small head, free from any exaggerated fas.h.i.+on, and yet with a distinction all its own. Her dark eyes once more showed the roguish lights of her schooldays, and her alluring red mouth twitched mischievously when she was in a gay mood.

A little below the medium height, she was so perfectly built as to escape any appearance of shortness, and carried herself so well, she sometimes appeared almost tall.

Considering what her life had been, she looked strangely young for her years, seeming to combine most alluringly the knowledge and sympathy of a woman of thirty-five with the freshness and capacity for enjoyment of twenty-five. The irrevocable tie so far had not clashed with any new affection; her husband remained in America and made no sign; and her art was all-sufficing.

Hal was built on quite different lines. Tall, and slender, and well knit, she moved with the surging grace of the athlete, and looked out upon the world with a joyfulness and humorous kindliness that won her friends everywhere. She was not beautiful in any sense that could be compared with Lorraine, but she had pretty brown hair, and fine eyes, and a clear, warm skin that made up for other defects, and helped to produce a very attractive whole.

Lorraine had taught her how to dress - an art of far deeper significance than many women trouble to realise; and wherever Hal went, if she did not create a sensation, at least she carried a dinstinction and pleasingness that were rarely overlooked. Her daily sojourn in the City, among the bread-winners, had made her large-hearted and generously tolerant, without hurting in any degree her own innate womanliness and charm.

She showed in her every gesture and action how it was possible to be of those who must scramble for buses, and press for trams, and live daily in the midst of panting, struggling, working, grasping humans, without losing tone, or gentleness, or a radiant, fearless sprit.i.t.

At the office of the newspaper where she filled the post of secretary and typist, she was a sort of cheerful inst.i.tution to smooth worried faces and call up a smile amidst the irritability and frowns.

Blunderers went to her with their troubles, and felt fairly secure if she would break the news of the blunder or mistake to the irritable and awe-inspiring chief. He, in his turn, would be irritable before her, but never with her; and it was a recognised fact among the staff that she was almost the only one who could make him laugh.

Thus a few intervening years pa.s.sed happily enough, briging Lorraine to her thirty-first birthday and Hal to her twenty-fifth, without any further upheavals to strike a discordant note across the daily round, except such inevitable trials as Lorraine continued to meet through her mother, and Hal through her devotion to a non-comprehending brother.

Only, while they had each other and their work, such difficulties were not hard to cope with; and life sang a gayer, happier song to them than she usually sings to the mere pleasure-seekers.

For work in a wide interesting sphere is a priceless boon, and the men who would condemn women solely to pleasure-seeking and the four walls of their home are showing the very acme of selfishness, in that they are endeavouring to keep solely and entirely for themselves one of the best things life has to give.

CHAPTER VI

It will be remembered, perhaps, that an occasion has already occured when Hal had cause to congratulate herself upon the possession of a cousin, named d.i.c.k, who acted as an antidote to a brother who sometimes resembled a great-aunt.

d.i.c.k, or to give him his full name, Richard Alastair Bruce, was indeed her best friend and boon companion next to Lorraine. He was her earliest playmate, and likewise her latest. For many months together they had been companions in the wildest of wild escapades as children, at d.i.c.k's country home; and now that they were both responsible members of the community, in the world's greatest city, they were equally attached.

If Hal was down on her luck, she telephoned d.i.c.k to come instantly to the rescue, and if it was humanly possible he came. If d.i.c.k wanted a sympathetic or gay companion, either to go out with him or to listen to his latest inspirations, he telephoned to Hal, and little short of an urgent, important engagement would delay her.