“Any reason why she shouldn’t?”
A bright colour came up under Cicely’s brown skin.
“As if you didn’t know! He makes love to every girl he meets, and if Georgina married him she would have to look after him for the rest of her life-and she’s not that sort, you know.”
“What sort is she?”
Cicely’s expression changed. Her really lovely sherry-coloured eyes looked up at him.
“She is-” She hesitated for a word, and then said, “vulnerable. Most people wouldn’t tell you that. They would say that she had looks and-and everything she wanted. But they don’t know. She doesn’t know either. She thinks everyone is like herself. She-she-oh, well she wouldn’t know a snake if she saw one.”
“You’re being harsh, aren’t you? Is Johnny Fabian the snake?”
Cicely’s chin lifted.
“Oh, I don’t know-he might be.”
She bit her lip, and her colour went out like a blown flame. He had an impression that if she hadn’t been dancing she might have stamped her foot. As it was, she jerked against his arm and came out with a burst of words.
“The trouble is she’ll have a great deal too much money!”
Cicely herself had had too much money. [*see Eternity Ring]. Lady Evelyn Abbott’s considerable fortune had gone past her father and Frank to the fifteen-year-old grand-daughter who was the only relation with whom she had not contrived to quarrel, and the first year of Cicely’s marriage had nearly come to grief upon the prejudices and suspicions which her grandmother’s twisted mind had implanted. The memory of those miserable months was in her voice as she spoke.
Frank gave her a light answer.
“Most people could put up with that complaint.” And then, as she looked up at him again startled, “Don’t make too much of it, Cis. Johnny wouldn’t anyway.”
She said quite sharply like a little scratching cat,
“Anthony might.”
“Anthony? My good girl!”
Her voice turned obstinate.
“I don’t think he would like a very rich wife. Some people don’t.”
“Some people might think more about the wife than about the money. Personally, of course, I am waiting for a super heiress.”
“And when you’ve found her?”
“I shall forsake a sordid life of crime and return to the Sussex Downs and keep bees like Sherlock Holmes.”
“I should have thought you might have found your heiress by now if you had really looked for her.”
He laughed.
“Perhaps I haven’t really looked!”
“Frank, why haven’t you? Is it because of that Susan What’s-her-name? Someone once told Mummy she was the only woman you had ever really been in love with.”
“And you always believe everything that anyone tells Monica?”
Cicely persisted.
“Was there really a Susan?”
“Quite a number of them. It’s a popular name.”
“Oh, well, if you won’t tell me-”
“So that you may tell Monica, and Monica may tell all her dearest friends? Thank you, my child!”
She made a little cross face.
“Oh, well, you’ll have to marry some day. But I don’t think Georgina would be any good. She’s as fair as you are. You ought to marry a dark girl, or at any rate a brown one.”
“Like you?”
Cicely showed the tip of her tongue again.
“Exactly like me. What a pity I’m not twins!”
Chapter II
FRANK ABBOTT drove down to Field End with Anthony Hallam on the following Saturday evening. They ran into fog and arrived so much later than they meant to that they were shown directly to their rooms and were obliged to hurry over their dressing. They had left the fog behind them, but all that he could see of the house as they drove up to it was the square Georgian look and enough light filtering through the curtains to show that not one of the rooms inside was dark. Memory supplied the rest-two ornamental gates both standing wide, a courtyard designed for the old coaching days, and the whole front of the house hung with Virginia creeper. He had spent school holidays not much more than a mile away at Deeping, when old Lady Evelyn was still reigning in Abbottsleigh and had not as yet had any irrevocable quarrel with him. He knew all this part of the country like the back of his hand. Deeping village still alluded to him as Mr. Frank, and he could remember Field End in an early September frost, standing foursquare with its face to the road, hung with a crimson, vermilion and scarlet tapestry. There would be no leaves now, only a winter tracery of slender brown stems. He could not recall that he had ever been inside the house before, though he had known Jonathan Field by sight, tall and thin, with a habit of walking bare-headed in the wildest weather with his rather long grey hair blowing out behind him.
Coming down dressed with Anthony, they encountered Jonathan in the hall. Frank didn’t know what he had expected, but there was a distinct jab of surprise as he realized how little the old boy had changed. The tall, thin figure was just as upright, the grey hair no greyer, the whole look and aspect so entirely that supplied by memory, that he could almost have expected to hear his grandmother announced and to see her make an imposing entrance in the black velvet and diamonds of a state occasion.
The picture was momentarily so vivid that the entrance of Mrs. Fabian struck a jarring note. She came from the direction of the dining-room, and he remembered that she had always been in a hurry. She was in a hurry now-quite breathless with it in fact, her hair, which was no longer brown but had never made its mind to turn grey, floating rather wildly from a twist of purple chiffon, and the diamond brooch at her shoulder coming undone. It actually dropped off as she shook hands with Anthony. And then, when he had picked it up and whilst she was fastening it, Frank was being explained and she was asserting that of course she remembered him perfectly.
“You used to stay with Lady Evelyn at Abbottsleigh in your school holidays. I don’t think I ever really met you, but I used to think how tall and thin you were-and so very much like your grandmother.”
This was not, of course, the most tactful approach. Although perfectly well aware of his resemblance to that formidable lady, it did not please her grandson to be reminded of the fact. Her portrait still dominated the drawing-room at Abbottsleigh with its long pale face, its bony nose, pale eyes, and the sleek fair hair above them.
He said, “So everyone tells me,” and she went on in a rambling inconsequent manner.
“But Georgina was only a little girl then-you won’t remember her, but you will remember my stepson, Johnny Fabian-he was always here a good deal, but perhaps that was later on, because of course there was a family quarrel, wasn’t there, and you stopped coming down. Family quarrels are always so distressing-of course any quarrels are. Your cousin Cicely and her husband-everyone was so glad when that was made up, and I believe they are coming here tonight. My dear mother brought us up never to let the sun go down on our wrath. ‘Kiss and be friends e’er night descends’ was what she used to say. And there was a verse my German governess made me learn-dear me, I hope I can remember it… Ah, yes, I can! She held up her hand where a number of inexpensive and very dirty rings clustered like swarming bees, and quoted:
Und hüte deine Zunge wohl,
Bald ist ein böses Wort gesagt,
Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,
Wenn du an Gräbern stehst und klagst.
But if you don’t understand German, perhaps I had better translate. Fräulein Weingarten used to make me say it every day:
Guard your tongue well,
An angry word is soon spoken,
The hour will come, the hour will come,
When you will stand and mourn by graves.
Not really a very cheerful verse to teach a child, but she always said I had a heedless tongue. Oh dear, it all seems so long ago.” She strayed on, saying vaguely, “I really think I heard a car. Did anyone else hear it?”