Lonesome Road

Chapter Twelve

Thomas Enderby was exactly like an old gray mouse, except that a mouse’s eyes are bright and dark, and his were veiled and of no color at all.

There was an interchange of courtesies reminding Rachel of an old lady she had known as a child who was wont to say with an approving nod of the head, “Compliments pass when gentlefolk meet.”

The compliments having passed, Mr. Brandon said something in a low voice, from which Rachel inferred that their visit had not been without preliminaries. With a bow Mr. Enderby disappeared through a door in the back of the shop, returning immediately with a square of black velvet which he laid before Miss Treherne. He then disappeared again, and this time for longer.

As she sat waiting, Rachel was aware of the romantic atmosphere. This old house, this old room; the very chair she sat in, with its high back and straight arms; the floor, black with age, uneven from the passing of the generations- all made a setting for the man who had brought her here to choose a love-gift for another woman. She was conscious of him as she had never been conscious of a man before. His look stirred her as if it had been a touch, and his touch… She steadied her thought to face what this might mean-the folly of a lonely woman who had had no time for love and had let it pass her by; the terror of a frightened woman groping for a hand that she might trust to; or something deeper, saner, more steadfast… Whichever it was, it meant pain. It meant that she must brace herself to meet pain, to endure it, to tread it down.

The change in her feelings dazed her. She had found pleasure in Gale Brandon’s society, and in his obvious admiration for herself, but she had never dreamed that she would feel like this because he told her that he loved another woman.

Thomas Enderby came back with an old-fashioned box of Tonbridge ware. He sat down at the table, opened the box, removed a layer of cotton wool, and took out three packages done up in tissue paper. His hands moved in a delicate and leisurely manner as he unfolded the paper. In the end he sat back and contemplated the three ornaments which he had disposed upon the square of black velvet, his eyes no longer hooded and dim, but bright with the discerning admiration of the connoisseur.

Rachel looked too.

The oak spray came out of its wrappings first. She found it hard to take her eyes from it-two diamond oak-leaves and three acorns, the cups shining with brilliants, and each acorn a pearl, two white and one black.

She said, “Oh, how lovely!” and Mr. Thomas Enderby agreed.

“It was my father’s design. It was commissioned by the Duchess of Southshire, but she died before it was completed. Now this chain came to us from abroad-Italian work, made to a Russian order.”

The chain was about twenty-five inches in length. It had pale gold links, most exquisitely fine, between alternate sapphires and emeralds, each stone beautifully cut and set with diamond sparks, the whole effect one of lightness, brilliance, and grace.

“This of course is the finest stone,” said Mr. Enderby. He touched the third ornament caressingly. “There is nothing like a ruby after all, and this is one of the best we have had. Look at the color!”

The ruby burned between two diamond wings-the lifted arch of an eagle’s wings. Between the flash of them the stone seemed alive.

“I am not, unfortunately, at liberty to give you the particular history of this piece,” pursued Thomas Enderby. “My father designed it for a member of a royal house, and it has recently come back to us.” He turned to Gale Brandon. “Those, sir, are our three best pieces.”

Rachel felt rather dazzled. The jewels were most beautiful. They were also most costly. She admired the romance of the gesture which would offer one of these exquisite things as a declaration of love without any certainty of its acceptance. But quick on this came the thought, “It spoils it all to let another woman choose.”

It was at this moment that he leaned to her and said,

“Which do you like best?”

The words struck a spark of resentment from her. She said, a thought quickly,

“But it isn’t what I like. I can’t choose for a woman I don’t know. Pearls are for one sort of woman, rubies for another, and emeralds and sapphires for another still. You’ll have to choose for yourself. I can’t help you.”

Gale Brandon’s eyes danced with a teasing light. He looked most extraordinarily alive in the little dark room.

“Isn’t that too bad!” he said. “But I wasn’t asking you to choose for me. I just felt very interested to know which of Mr. Enderby’s pretty things you liked best. Because, you see, I’ve figured it out this way. Say there’s one that I like best. Well, if you choose it too, then there are two votes for that. Do you see what I mean?”

“But it isn’t my vote that ought to count, because I’m quite in the dark. Why, I don’t even know the color of her hair.”

A smile flickered over his face.

“Well, we’ll all be getting gray hair some day. I hope she’s going to wear it a good long time, so it would be better to choose something that’s going to go on looking good when she’s got those silver threads among the gold.”

So she had golden hair… It didn’t go a good gray as a rule… She said in the friendliest tone she could compass,

“If she is fair, the emerald and sapphire chain would suit her.”

“But I didn’t say she was fair, Miss Treherne.”

“I thought you did. You quoted the song about silver threads among the gold.”

“That was a figure of speech. I certainly shouldn’t call her fair-except in the romantic sense-and I can’t see that there is one of these jewels that wouldn’t be mighty becoming to her. But I really would appreciate it if you would tell me which one appeals to you, Miss Treherne. You see, it’s the woman’s point of view I’d like to get.”

She found herself laughing a little scornfully.

“Do you really think all women are alike?”

He laughed too.

“It would certainly be dull if they were. But I would really like to know which of these pretty things you do like the best. I’m interested in your point of view. And then I’d like to know whether you like the one that I like, and when we’ve settled that we’ll ask Mr. Enderby which is the one he’d save if his shop was burning.”

Thomas Enderby’s hand went out a little way and drew back.

An irrational gust of gaiety blew into Rachel’s mind. She put out her own hand and touched the oak spray with its pearl acorns.

“Oh, that’s my one. I lost my heart to it at once. But I don’t believe Mr. Enderby can bear to let it go. He’s lost his heart to it too.”

“And I’ve lost mine,” said Gale Brandon-“so there are three of us. Well, Mr. Enderby-what about it? Will you let me have it-for the loveliest and kindest lady in the world?”

“It’s not everyone I’d let it go to,” said Thomas Enderby.