CHAPTER XXIV

UNREST

"Let me alone! Why must you claim me? I Am woman--do you tell me I must lie All passive in Fate's arms until I die?

I must not care for Art, nor crave to be A force in this fair world--'tis not for me To live my own life. Was I made for thee?

No! I am rebel! Through life's open gate I pass alone, and free; you come too late! Or is't too soon? I know not; let us wait."

Carol Mayne passed all that day in a state of feverish anxiety. In the evening he suggested to Lance that they should go round to Collis Square. It was late, but it was their only chance to call upon Mrs. Helston before leaving town. They arrived about half-past eight, and found Brenda in the drawing-room, and with her Theo Cooper, who was a frequent visitor.

It was now twelve months since this young lady had defied parental authority and gone on the stage.

She was conspicuously unfitted for such a life, being pretty in a showy way, forward and giddy. But her parents' very natural opposition did not weigh at all with her. They had so often objected to what was wholesome, reasonable, and harmless, that their opinion had no weight with any of their children. With their habitual reserve, they suppressed entirely their deeper reasons for objection, and the only one they ostensibly urged was: "What will people say?" To a girl whose one hope was to be notorious, this was no deterrent.

The affair of Gwendolen and young Freshfield had produced a curious effect in the Vicarage family. The strenuous efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Cooper to hush it up had been successful as regards their neighbours; but this success had been dearly purchased at home at the cost of lowering their children's estimate of them. These merciless critics had now discovered that whatever they did would be condoned, sooner than let the world suspect a family breach, or a family scandal. Mrs. Cooper's own theory of her perfection, and of her success as a wife, mother, and leader of conduct in the village, must be preserved at any sacrifice of truth.

Gwendolen and Madeline were despatched to school, the governess was dismissed, and all went on as usual. But from that moment each child took his or her own line.

George, the eldest, whose sulky protest against taking orders had been wholly ignored by his father, ran into debt at Oxford, failed to take his degree, and finally bolted to America, whence he wrote for funds at frequent intervals.

Willie, the next boy, who had some ability, after various letters and conversations which left the vicar enraged, humiliated, well-nigh heart-broken, had gone to reside with an agnostic community in East London. He was just the man they wanted--his intellect exactly of the calibre which quickly assimilates specious argument, and reproduces it in an attractive form; and the Fraternity of Man paid him one hundred pounds per annum to teach men brotherhood, while denying meanwhile the one great antecedent fact of common Fatherhood.

Gwendolen, on leaving school, found herself unable to live at home, and had gone to teach English in a Russian family at St. Petersburg. Madeline remained at the Vicarage, nominally as governess to Barbara and Beatrice; she was the weakest of the five, and the most deeply influenced by her mother.

Theo would have been a very pretty girl, with a little good taste to guide her. But, coming up from the lonely spot where her life had been spent, she, with quick receptive capacity, imbibed notions of dress and _coiffure_ from the girls in the omnibuses in which she travelled. She wore, as Melicent once remarked, a quantity of cheap clothes, extravagantly put on.

A bright-coloured silk blouse, low in the neck, beads, artificial flowers, a becoming hat, but too large--atrocious boots and a reek of scent--these must have convinced anybody of the good ground Theo's parents had for thinking her unsuited to go about London independently. Without conscious intent, her whole appearance laid her open to the chance of being mistaken for quite other than she was; and she had all the vain-glorious self-confidence of a very young, very ignorant girl. If she came off scatheless, it would be because her type is so plentiful, and by no means because of her discretion.

Carol Mayne, when presented to this young lady, as one of Melicent's Fransdale cousins, was guilty of the rudeness of staring. He could not believe that he had heard correctly, as he contemplated the lithe figure, the lounging attitude, the lumpy hair, the cigarette.

"Not--one of the Vicarage cousins?" he asked, in amazement.

Theo was delighted as she saw him visibly trying to adjust her with his preconceived notion of the strictly brought up Miss Coopers.

"My father being a priest doesn't make me a priestess!" she cried. Her voice was a little too loud at all times. "That's where the English make their big mistake. My mother thinks she has every bit as much right to go round lecturing the parishioners as my father has; but that's just tommy-rot, you know. We're always telling her she hasn't any official status. You're not married, are you, Mr. Mayne?"

"There isn't any room in the colonies for the English provincial vicarage life," he replied good-humouredly, mentally contrasting this flower of modern girlhood with his late ward, and trying to realise that this young lady's parents had thought her contaminated by Melicent's companionship.

"Are you living in town?" he asked.

"Yes; I'm on the boards," said Theo, leaning forward to toss her cigarette stump into the fire. "Keen on the theatre?" she asked casually.

Carol looked at Burmester, who was enjoying his friend's consternation. The Cooper girls were the young man's horror and annoyance.

At this moment the door was pushed open, and Melicent came quietly in.

She had been told who was there, and was on guard.

She knew why Mayne had come. He wanted to know how his conspiracy was progressing. Very well; he would get nothing out of her.

Lance hurried to her. "So you've been to look at old Brooke's ancestral acres?"

"Yes." She sat down after greeting the company. Her tone was colourless.

"Dear," said Brenda, "I hope you've had some food; I told them to keep it hot."

"Oh, yes, thanks. How's Pater getting on?"

"He's very anxious to hear what you've done."

"Oh, I don't know that I've done very much."

"You look tired."

"I am. Such a horrid journey. I wish Pater could have come."

"Why, was Captain Brooke not cordial?" asked Brenda, in surprise.

"Oh, quite, thanks. Only I don't know that I shall undertake the commission after all; it's such a big thing."

"Millie!" Brenda almost gasped, for this speech was wholly out of character with the habitual utterances of Miss Lutwyche, among whose failings diffidence could not be reckoned.

"Well, you'll never get on," said Theo earnestly. "Hitch your waggon to a star, my dear. You might live to be fifty, and never get such another chance."

"That's very true," said Melicent, with curious emphasis.

Then she remembered Mayne's presence, and could have bitten out her tongue.

"What do you think of Brooke, eh, Miss Lutwyche?" asked Lance, eager to have his friend approved.

"Well, I thought him rather--what shall I say--capricious, unstable," she said, and was met with a simultaneous protest from both men.

"You couldn't say that of Brooke!"

"Oh, you both know him, of course, and I don't," said she composedly. "But I thought him a little undecided. Seemed quite ready, at a moment's whim, to throw up his idea of building in Wiltshire, and try another county, after he had bought the land."

"If he is like that, it would be better not to undertake his work, I should think," said Brenda, in tones of disappointment.

"But, Mrs. Helston, I assure you he's not like that!" cried Mayne, with warmth. "And he's rich enough to build two houses if he wants them."

"He seemed to like the ideas I suggested," said Melicent, leaning back restfully in a corner of the sofa. "I daresay I shall get on all right. I'm a bit tired to-night, but I feel better already for the comforts of home. I know how it is that men often come home of an evening as cross as two sticks. How goes the world with you, Theo?" she went on, as Brenda left the room to see if her husband wanted anything.

"Oh, not so bad! Bates"--her agent--"thinks he knows of a crib for me. Gertie Gordon's got it; but she's too stumpy, and they're going to sack her; and it lies between Lillie Billington and me. I'm going to see Freeman to-morrow."

"Freeman? Then it's musical light comedy? I thought that wasn't your line."

"My dear, when you're a beginner, you take what you can get," said Theo coolly.

"That's the worst of it, I should think. Is it a good part?"

"Ra-ther! Principal boy!"

"Principal boy!" Melicent thought of the Vicarage at Fransdale. But her attention was diverted by the gentlemen rising to go. Evidently Theo meant to stay, and her presence prevented either of them from carrying out the design with which they had come.

Lance's manner, as he spoke of their early meeting again, was so significant, so obviously fraught with admiration, that the girl could not mistake it. As she stood by him, near the door, while he took his leave, an idea darted into the back of her mind.

Bert would be powerless to pursue her if she were married to someone else.

It was very different from the career she had planned. She wanted to build up a future, not to resign herself to a level, monotonous domesticity. But under the pressure of her present scare, the bare notion of any way of escape was welcome.

Carol departed with a distinct sense of disappointment. He hardly knew what he had hoped. But the impression he took away with him was that Bert had wholly failed to please or interest Millie. Not for a moment did he guess that the secret was out. Under such circumstances, with the state of feeling which she had so lately confessed to him, he would not have thought her self-possession possible.

Slowly Melicent walked back to her seat by the fire, where Theo had lighted another cigarette. On her homeward journey she had had time to decide upon her plan of action. She was not going to say a word of her discovery to anybody.

Her first impulse had been vehemently to reproach Carol Mayne for treachery; but reflection had showed that she could not do this without Bert being made aware that she knew him. To tell the Helstons would be to subject herself to the continual fret of knowing herself observed. They might even urge her to tell Bert that she knew; or counsel her to give up this building scheme, to which her ambition turned with fierce longing. She felt sure, in spite of her diffident words, that she could design and build at Lone Ash a house which should make her reputation. To do this in peace, she must keep her own counsel. After all, this was nobody's affair but her own. If Bert had come for her, as seemed fatally obvious, it all rested with him and with her. Single-handed he had engaged on the contest, and single-handed she would fight him. There seemed something a little cowardly in calling in the Helstons to her rescue. She did not mean to marry him. Well! He would soon find that out. There were plenty of girls in England for a man of property to woo successfully--Theo, for instance.

She leaned forward.

"Theo!" she said abruptly, "you've got to mind what you're about. There was a girl at school with me who went on the stage, and she did what you are doing--signed an agreement as principal boy--and she found she had done for herself. Ever after, she had only boys' parts offered her. 'Oh,' said they, 'you can't object, you have done it before.' She left the stage in consequence. Of course, for all I know, you may prefer being boy, but I thought I would just warn you what to expect."

"Awfully good of you," said Theo. She smoked in silence for a minute, then broke out: "Anyway, I'm not going another tour with Tarver's Company. After that Minnie Leslie's husband turning up, as I told you, at Crewe, when she was in rooms with--"

"'Tsha!'" It was a little soft sound of disgust that Millie was prone to make. "Look here, Theo, if you really are going on with this kind of life, your only way to keep clean is to turn your back on all that kind of thing. Don't be mixed up in it--don't talk about it."

"It's the agent that counts," said Theo evasively. "Bates is a right good sort, and he isn't going to see me let in, you bet I was pretty careful what agent I went to. I know the ropes, though you think me a country bumpkin. I can't help knowing that Batey's going to give me every lift he can."

"Why?" asked Milicent bluntly.

"Because he thinks there's money in me."

This was unanswerable.