Grey Mask

CHAPTER XXIX

Dinner was over at last. Charles had never endured forty minutes more crowded with indiscretions. He was reduced to a condition of exasperated resignation. After all, neither Freddy nor Archie mattered; but unless one locked the creature up, she would prattle in the same artless way to anyone she met. He thought of uninhabited islands with yearning, and of Margaret with rage. If it were not for Margaret he would not be mixed up in this damned affair at all.

The girls went upstairs to put on their coats. Freddy fussed away to see if the car had come round. Archie turned a reproachful eye on Charles.

“Why teach an innocent child to practise concealments?”

Charles had no reply but a frown.

“Why keep me out of it anyhow? Why pretend?”

“What are you driving at?”

“Well, she’s Margot Standing, isn’t she?”

“You guessed when she said ‘Egbert’?”

“I guessed the second time I saw her,” said Archie. “She wants a whole heap of practice before she can conceal anythin’. Does Freddy know?”

“I expect he does by now. Egbert isn’t the sort of name most fellows would be seen dead in a ditch with. Look here, Archie, I want to talk to you. What about after the show? We can take the girls home, and then you come round to ‘The Luxe’ with me.”

Archie nodded, and Freddy came, back into the room. Upstairs Greta clutched Margaret by the arm.

“He never showed us the miniature. Margaret, I do want to see your mother’s miniature so badly.”

“Why should you want to see it?” Her tone said plainly. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“I want to see it frightfully. When I saw Esther Brandon written on that bit of paper, it gave me a most frightfully excited sort of feeling. I simply must see her miniature. Where is it? Can’t you show it to me?”

“It’s in Freddy’s study,” said Margaret in a slow, flat voice.

“Show it to me quickly! Oh, do put on your coat and come and show it to me!”

She fairly danced down the stairs, looking back over her shoulder and urging Margaret to hurry.

The study was one of those built-out rooms half-way down the stair-a fussy, untidy place full of photographs, pipes, guns, fishing-rods, stamp-albums, old bound magazines, and a chaotic muddle of letters and bills.

“Freddy’s hopeless,” said Margaret.

“Where’s the miniature?”

“On his writing-table.” She moved The Times and two picture papers as she spoke. Under the papers was a tall old-fashioned miniature case. It had folding doors that could be locked. The doors were shut.

“Oh!” said Greta. She caught at the table and leaned on it. “Oh, it’s Papa’s! Oh, Margaret, it’s Papa’s!”

Margaret just stood and looked at it.

“Margaret, it is Papa’s! Oh, do open it!”

“What are you talking about?” said Margaret very slowly.

“Papa had a case just like this. It stood on his table. I told Mr. Hale about it. I only saw inside it once-just a peep. Oh, Margaret, do open it-do!”

Margaret put her hand on the case.

“It’s locked, Greta.”

“Get him to open it. Oh, I do want to see what’s inside!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Papa’s had diamonds all round it. Has this one got diamonds all round it?”

“No, it’s quite plain-just a picture of my mother in a white dress.”

“My mother had a white dress too. It must have been my mother. Don’t you think so? There were diamonds all round. They sparkled like anything.”

“Greta! Margaret! Hurry up!” Freddy was fussing in the hall; his voice sounded querulous.

Greta gave a little shriek of dismay:

“Oh, we’ll be late! We mustn’t be late! We’re coming,” she cried, and ran out of the room.

For a moment Margaret stayed behind. She put both hands on the case and opened the little doors. The case opened quite easily. Esther Brandon looked out at her. She wore a white dress. She smiled serenely. The world was at her feet.

Margaret shut the case and went slowly out of the room.

The show was a great success as far as Greta and Freddy were concerned. There was singing, there was dancing; there were coloured lights and gorgeous scenes quite unlike anything except a stage land of dreams.

Greta was in the seventh heaven. She sat between Freddy and Archie, and at intervals she murmured, “How frightfully clever! How frightfully sweet!” and “Oh, isn’t he wonderful?”

Archie’s comment, “Revoltin’ fellow,” was received with intense disfavour.

“He’s lovely! His eyelashes are longer than Charles’. I think he’s simply sweet.”

This was in the interval.

Archie made a face and hummed just under his breath.

“Oh, you do need

Someone to watch over you-misquotation from Oh Kay.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. It says,

“ ‘Oh, I do need

Someone to watch over me.’ ”

“That’s what I said. Or, in the plain words of everyday life, you want someone to look after you.”

“I don’t! I can look after myself. I’m eighteen, and I was leaving school at Christmas anyhow. Of course you’re older than me. But I’m grown up, and that’s what matters. How old are you, Archie? Are you frightfully old?”

“Frightfully. Poor old Charles and I are just hangin’ on.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven,” said Archie. “But Charles was twenty-eight a week ago, so I’m one up on him.”

“It must be simply frightful to be twenty-eight,” said Greta with conviction. She snuggled up to Archie and whispered, “Is Margaret awfully old too?”

“Ssh! She’s twenty-four. Pretty bad-isn’t it?”

Greta considered.

“I shall be married years and years before I’m twenty-four. It’s rather old, but I do love Margaret all the same.”

When the curtain had fallen for the last time, they came out into a windy night. It had been raining; the pavements were wet, and the wind was wet.

Freddy shepherded his party briskly.

“We’ll just go along to the corner and cross over. Archie can get us a taxi quite easily from there. Much better than waiting in this crush. Rather nice to get a breath of air- what? Lucky it’s not raining-isn’t it? Now I remember once-” he addressed himself to Greta; fragments of the anecdote that followed reached Charles as he walked a yard ahead…“and I said I’d give her a lift because it was so wet…too bad, wasn’t it?…me, of all people in the world…and I think her name was Gwendolen Jones, but I can’t be sure…”

They crossed to an island in the middle of the road. Archie made a rapid dash and got to the farther side. Freddy was fussing over Margaret and Greta.

“Now, my dear, take my arm. Margaret, perhaps you’d better take Charles’ arm.”

Charles heard Margaret say, “I don’t want anyone’s arm,” and at the same moment the people on the island began to flow across. He saw Margaret and Greta together, Freddy next Margaret; and then, when he was half-way over, he heard Greta scream. He turned. It was a scream of sharp and anguished fear. He looked, and could see only a crowd and a confusion. There was a bus standing still.

He pushed through, and saw Greta just not under the bus. She was lying as she had fallen, her hands spread out, her fair hair splashed with mud, her face splashed with mud. Freddy and the bus-conductor were picking her up, and as Charles arrived she was beginning to cry. He looked round for Margaret, and saw her standing straight and still. The light from the arc-lamp was on her face.

Charles felt his heart turn over. The whole thing had happened in a moment, and in a moment it was past. The driver of the bus was saying loudly and dogmatically, “She ain’t hurt, I tell you. She ain’t touched I tell you”; and this was mixed with Greta’s sobs and Freddy’s “Very careless- very careless indeed! The young lady might have been killed.”

Charles said, “What happened?” and the sound of his own voice startled him. It seemed to startle Greta too. She gave a much louder sob and flung both arms round his neck with a wail of “Take me home! Oh, Charles, please take me home!”

It was at this moment that the policeman arrived.

Freddy was in his element at once.

“Most unfortunate, constable-the young lady might have been killed. We were all going across together, my daughter and this young lady and I, and she slipped-Didn’t you, my dear? Dear me, we ought to be very thankful she isn’t hurt. She slipped and fell right in front of the bus. Now, my dear, you’re quite safe. No-don’t cry. You’re not hurt, are you?”

“She wasn’t touched,” said the driver of the bus in the same loud aggressive voice.

“Are you hurt, miss?” inquired the policeman.

Charles had removed Greta’s arms from about his neck, but she still clung to his shoulder. In spite of the splashes of mud on her face she managed to look pretty and appealing.

“I might have been killed,” she said.

“Are you hurt, miss?”

“I might have been killed,” said Greta with a sob. “Someone pushed me, and I fell right under that horrible bus.”

“Any injuries, miss?”

“N-no,” said Greta. She gazed down at the drabbled white skirt which her open coat disclosed. “Oh, my frock’s spoilt!”

It was like a nightmare. When Archie came up with a taxi, Charles felt as if the whole thing had been going on for years and would continue to go on for ever. The interested crowd; the voice of the bus driver; Greta’s hysterical sobbing; and the policeman writing things down in a note-book. Just outside all this, Margaret standing under the arc-light. She had not spoken a word or moved to come to Greta.

Charles touched her on the arm.

“Come along-we want to get out of this. Freddy says he’ll walk, and Archie’s going the other way. I’ll take you home.”

When he had put the girls into the taxi, Charles spoke for a moment to Archie Millar.

“I’ll fix up a talk some other time-to-night won’t do.”

It was only afterwards he thought it strange that Archie turned away without so much as a word.