CHAPTER XV

So this was the “old friend” with whom the hook for her had been partially baited! Charlie Landon, the hero of that dinner at the Réservoir at Versailles; Charlie Landon, the odious old voluptuary most detested by her of all her mother’s disreputable _entourage_; the one whose degrading admiration and nauseous overtures she had had the most difficulty in keeping within decent bounds; Charlie Landon!

Was it to meet Charlie Landon, whom she would have compassed sea and land to avoid, that she had imperilled her salvation?--for indeed the sure refuge of the house into which she had found admittance seemed to her, in this sudden terror of deservedly losing it, to spell no less a thing. She had never seen the hateful old satyr face since the Versailles evening, as some blessed accident summoned its owner back to England on the day following it.

That Flora was quite ignorant of her young guest’s attitude of mind towards her old one was evident both from that known good-nature of hers, which would never willingly place any two people in an uncomfortable situation, and also from the fact that before Charlie had become a prominent person in the ever-narrowing circle of Claire’s friends, Flora had seen herself obliged to withdraw from it personally.

Lady Tennington rather liked Charlie. He did not make love to her, and she would not have minded if he had, and his fund of indelicate anecdotes amused her. It was upon his own representation of the affectionate intimacy existing between himself and the young girl--for in the accomplishment of lying Charlie could have given Bonnybell herself points--that the invitation to meet him had gone forth veiled in the anonymity which was most likely to produce the desired effect.

Perhaps it was because Miss Bonnybell’s features, though equally practised in dissimulation, were not so expert at it as her tongue, but certainly it was that something which was not of the expected quality had expressed itself in the girl’s face, and given a surprised and interrogative quality to Flora’s next words.

“Charlie wanted to go and fetch you, but I would not let him. _I_ wanted to have the pleasure of seeing your pleasure at so unexpected a meeting. He tells me that you became such dear friends after--after I left Paris.”

But by this time Miss Ransome was herself again. Charlie would be a dangerous enemy, and might let out or purposely disclose circumstances in her past history--circumstances due not to her fault, indeed, but to her misfortune--yet does the world ever nicely discriminate between the two?--which might seriously prejudice her future. She had no more doubt of Charlie’s vindictiveness than of his sensuality, and there was as much need to be on guard against the one as against the other. So she submitted her hand, which he insisted upon kissing, to his clasp, and answered with perfect civility--

“Yes, it is quite a surprise. I had not an idea that Colonel Landon was down here.”

“Colonel Landon!” repeated he, with an affectation of reproachful astonishment. “How formal we have grown all of a sudden!”

There was an odious implication of former intimacy in his tone, and Flora, who had begun to laugh at it, stopped suddenly, arrested by the undisguisable repulsion which pierced through the set smile on her young friend’s face.

“You would not wonder at anything,” she cried hastily, “if you knew the sort of people the poor thing has fallen amongst. Do tell Charlie, Bonnybell, about your experiences with the Aylmers; he would be _so_ much amused, and I _could_ not hear them too often.”

But Bonnybell had, with all her knowledge of Charlie’s power of revengeful tit-for-tat in the case of a supposed snub, done as much for him as she could for the moment manage, and she excused herself with pretty ingenuity, asserting, with a smile that was ordered still to keep well to the front, that the anecdote could be entertaining only to a person acquainted with the Aylmer family, and would lose all its point in the case of one who had not that advantage. Inwardly, while uttering her little apology for refusing, she was sharply regretting that her glove had been taken off previous to the “old friend’s” detested caress, and wondering how soon she would cease to be conscious of it on the back of her hand.

The announcement of luncheon put a welcome end to the importunities to which her refusal subjected her. The sight of one more place laid at the table than there were occupants for made her draw the inference that the “new friend” had been expected, and had failed to appear, but she waited in vain for some comment upon his absence. To Lady Tennington’s easy-going board people came or not as they chose. If they appeared at it, so much the better; if they didn’t appear at it, not so very much the worse. In Flora’s circle promises and engagements did not go for much, nor did the breaking of them cause her either annoyance or surprise.

The conversation at the repast was chiefly in Charlie’s hands and under his guidance. He was a past-master in the art of _double-entendre_, and had a power that it would be difficult to surpass of giving to the most plain and innocent sentences an indecent meaning. From off the guileless backs of most English girls Charlie’s conversation could fall in a harmless cascade, as being too bad to be understood, but there was not one of his innuendoes and perverse twistings of the commonplaces of speech that Bonnybell did not fully comprehend, with the added knowledge that he knew that she did so.

Flora called him to order once or twice, but not very severely. Charlie was really very amusing; and, after all, Bonnybell was not like other girls. It was such a comfort that one need not be on one’s P’s and Q’s with her.

Scarcely ever, in all the reach of her eighteen years’ memory, had Miss Ransome sat at a feast--and Flora’s cuisine deserved that title--with a more uneasy and unenjoying mind. Not even the unwonted solace of as many post-luncheon cigarettes as she could desire at all compensated her for the distastefulness of the company, or for the racking twin anxieties that occupied her mind; the anxiety to get home as fast as possible, so as to obviate all risk of discovery incident upon a possible change of plan in Mr. and Mrs. Tancred, and to prevent Charlie from escorting her. All her manœuvres to get her hostess alone in order to ask for her aid in obtaining this latter boon having failed, she had to content herself with the meagre consolation that, at all events, she would have the chaperonage of the chauffeur.

Immediately after luncheon the rest of the party sat down to dummy bridge. It was not without loud outcries on the part of two of her companions, and some umbrage at the gentle fixity of her determination not to make a fourth--for Harrington never dared show umbrage at anything--that Bonnybell escaped their upbraiding importunities. If she allowed herself to acquiesce, Heaven knows how long she might be chained to the card-table, when once they had got hold of her, and her longed-for departure postponed if she was not firm. But it was not without paying the toll of some gibing jests at her benefactors’ expense--jests which she did not in the least enjoy, and which caused her an unexpected subsequent remorse--that she was let off, and given the inspiriting promise that the motor should be at the door in half an hour’s time. She waited to hear the message really given, and then to escape the pursuit of Charlie’s eyes, which, though not so good as they had been, were still only too embarrassing, she left the trio, to resume her hat and wraps.

In former days Bonnybell had never been in time for anything, but to-day, though twenty minutes must elapse before the motor was due, she stood restless and troubled, awaiting its arrival in a conservatory which opened out of the room in which the players had settled down to their mutilated gamble. She could hear, between the deals, Charlie firing off his _double-entendres_ to lighten the seriousness of the pursuit, and Flora’s stimulating rebuke, “Oh, come, Charlie, that is rather too stiff. You must remember that we have a _fille à marier_ on the premises.” And then they all laughed.

Well they might! thought the listener. A _fille à marier_! And yet that was precisely what she was! With what other purpose but the insane one of furthering that object was she there? And how likely were such a _milieu_ and atmosphere to promote it!

The conservatory was a long one, and by walking to the end of it she could get out of earshot of the bridge-players. Why go on listening to Charlie for twenty minutes, if she could help it? A cluster of wicker chairs stood under a palm, and into the cushions of one of them she sank, looking round with uneasy eyes upon the mass of bloom about her. She did not care a straw about flowers in their natural and out-door state, and forced ones represented to her mind out-of-season extravagances of ten and twenty-five guinea January bouquets--represented to her the past and Claire.

What a fool she had been! Had ever any one risked so much to gain so little? Thinking it over coolly--that was just what she could not do, since so much was at stake--what were the odds in favour of her getting home undetected? Even if she did so, the danger was by no means over. A slip of the tongue, a stupidity, a malice on the part of one of the servants, happening any time during the next six months, might wreck her. She must be very, very civil and pleasant to the whole establishment. If she got any _étrennes_ in the shape of money, she would have to tip them heavily; and yet even so, she would never be able to be quite free from anxiety.

She trusted to be put out of suspense as to her worst fear--that of a premature return from London on the part of the Tancreds--in half an hour from the present moment. The return journey could not take more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

Her worst fear! Wasn’t there yet a worse than the worst?--the fear that Charlie might this time carry his point, and insist on escorting her back? Since the motor was a brougham, of what possible use or protection could the chauffeur be? Should she beg Harrington to come too? But it was a single brougham!

The sound of steps approaching roused her. Well, this was a bit of luck! She would get off sooner than she had thought possible; for here was a footman coming to tell her that the ark of her salvation was at the door. But the owner of the nearing footfall did not wear Flora’s livery.

“I was sent to look for you!” observed a young and manly, but not very gracious voice.

The heart of the _fille à marier_ gave a jump up from her boots, to which it had latterly been sinking. Late, but not quite too late, here was the Toby for whom she had sacrificed, suffered, and imperilled so much!

“Oh, how glad I am!”

This was perfectly true, but that was not at all the reason why she uttered it! A rapid calculation resulted in the conclusion that in the very short time allotted to her, if she ever wished to make an effect--and oh, didn’t she wish it?--the stroke of her brush must be broad. This was neither the place, the time, nor the object for caution. The impulsive pleasure of one too young and inexperienced to hide a keen pleasure that had taken her by surprise, the outbreak of an emotion too glad and strong to be kept in the leading-strings of convention,--this was the appearance to be aimed at, and which the full look which she allowed her large fawn eyes to take of his fresh-coloured stolid face told her was achieved.

Toby, who, despite his stodgy shyness, was possessed of quite enough conceit to keep him in a competence, if not affluence, of self-esteem, saw no reason why he should doubt that this effusive young stranger was excessively glad to see him.

The young stranger, on her part, was pleased to have made her meaning plain; but, having done so, gave maiden modesty at having been surprised into such an admission its turn.

“You must forgive my saying what seems silly and exaggerated, considering how little I know you; but----” Then a sudden inspiration came to the prettily embarrassed, and yet really harassed, young creature. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Give herself an interest in the eyes of this block of a Toby, if he was stupid enough not to have already conceived one, by enlisting his sympathy and help; and in so doing also baffle the abhorred Charlie? No sooner thought than uttered, with no apparent hitch or hindrance in the smooth run of her sentence: “But the moment I saw you the thought struck me how much--how enormously you might help me if you would.”

“Help you? _I!_”

There was marked surprise in the tone, but there was also, if the hearer erred not, a hint of gratification and a willingness to hear more.

“You give me the idea”--permitting herself to take timid stock of him as she spoke--“of being very determined, and able to make people mind what you say.”

“Do I?”

Bonnybell hesitated a moment, both to heighten the evident curiosity that she had roused, and because she was divided between two or three artistic openings. But her time was running out. She must not allow herself to hesitate.

“Is--is Colonel Landon a friend of yours?”

“Old Charlie Landon a friend of mine? God forbid!”

There was such a distinct tone of offence at the suggestion in this robust disclaimer, that Bonnybell clasped her little black hands, which she had on several former occasions found to be so invaluable as “properties,” in an ecstasy of relief.

“Oh, I _am_ so glad!” After all, it was pleasant and refreshing to tell truth as a change once in a way, and with a judicious economy.

“I can’t imagine how Lady Tennington could have asked you to meet such a beastly old reprobate!”

The stodgy face had lit up, and the vigour of its owner’s vernacular found an echo in Miss Ransome’s inmost soul.

“A beastly old reprobate!” Oh, if Toby knew all! Yet caution and the dread of Charlie’s vengeance, and his power of revelation, prompted her to say--

“I knew him when I was a child, and I should not like to hurt his feelings. But I am a little afraid that he will want to take me back to Stillington in the motor, and--and--it is a brougham!”

A quarter of an hour later Bonnybell was flashing homeward alone, having accidentally happened to mention to the preserver, whom she had successfully enlisted in her service, the fact of her passionate fondness for wandering in parks at winter gloamings, and having received from him in return information of almost excessive accuracy as to those parts of the Stillington Deer Park which might be safely visited at that time of year by a solitary stroller.