The Annam Jewel (10 page)

“I'm going to speak very seriously to you. I want you to give me your whole attention.” He paused for a moment, his eyes bitter, his lips just touched with sarcasm. “Sylvia,” he said, “you have a very pretty face and, as I believe, a nature light enough. I have seen these things in you, but I see something else besides, something that you have from me, an instinct of self-interest—or shall we say self-protection?—it sounds prettier and comes to much the same thing. Call it what you like, it's to that instinct that I'm talking now. If it hasn't sufficient strength to curb your chattering tongue, then I tell you this quite seriously—you will suffer a great deal more than I shall.”

He spoke quickly, his eyes downcast; but every now and then he lifted them and looked full at Sylvia for an instant. He saw her face change and harden. What he saw pleased him. He went on, speaking a little more slowly:

“All men play the fool sometimes. Eighteen years ago I played the fool in Annam. I got mixed up with a very serious affair. I was not there under my own name. Practically no one knows that I was ever in Annam at all. If the affair became public now—well …” He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Well, I don't pretend that it would be pleasant for me, but for you, Sylvia, it would be social ruin.”

He looked at her keenly and laid one hand upon her shoulder again.

“Now, my child, somehow I do not associate you with social ruin. I think you'd do your best to avoid it. A brilliant social success is rather more in your line, I imagine. I never opposed this ridiculous engagement of yours because—well, I knew that it was not worth bothering about. Quite frankly, I did not see you settling down in the suburbs as Mrs. Marling. No, you'll make a brilliant marriage some day, if you can hold your tongue. If you can't—well, I'm afraid even the suburbs will pass you by upon the other side.”

“Oh!” said Sylvia on a shuddering breath. She drew back a pace and put her hands before her eyes.

“Oh!” she said again. A long shiver went over her.

Her father's manner changed.

“Now,” he said, “when you mentioned Annam, what did this boy say?”

“He didn't say anything.”

“Did he seem to take any notice? How did he look?”

“He didn't,” said Sylvia. “I mean he didn't speak, or look, or do anything. He just got up and pushed past us all and went off.”

“When you mentioned Annam?”

“Yes, when I said Annam, he just pushed his chair over and went off.”

Coverdale beat with his closed fist upon the open palm of his other hand. Every muscle in his thin, smooth face had tightened. He looked old. There was a silence before he said:

“Did he speak of it again? Tell me exactly.”

“No, no, he didn't.”

“Sylvia, tell me. Did he speak of—of a jewel? If you can recall the slightest reference, you must tell me.”

“No—yes, he didn't until this evening. I don't know what he meant.”

He took both her hands in his.

“Don't be frightened. Try and get it clear. Tell me just what he said—the exact words.”

Sylvia's wide blue eyes met his.

“Oh, I don't know,” she said. “I don't think he meant anything. We were in the rose garden, and—and he …”

“He was making love to you, I suppose?”

Sylvia flushed.

“Yes, he was. And—and all of a sudden he went down on his knees, and—and he was kissing my hand—and he said: ‘You're the only jewel I want, but I'll give you the other one to wear.' That's what he said.”

“That was all?”

“Yes. I laughed at him. We quarrelled. He frightened me, and I ran away.”

Therewas a long silence. Coverdale let go of his daughter's hands.

“Very well,” he said, “that ends it. Do you hear, Sylvia, the thing's done. You've quarrelled—you drop his acquaintance, and you hold your tongue—if you don't, I'm afraid, my child, that you'll pay a heavier penalty than you've any idea of. That's all. We won't speak about it again.”

Sylvia lay awake a long time that night. When she slept, it was to dream that she was being married to Peter Waring in Westminster Abbey. Her shoes were sewn with diamonds, and Peter gave her a small gladstone bag which burst open in the nave and poured forth a flood of precious stones. Then someone called out in a loud ringing voice, “I forbid the banns,” and she woke up.

CHAPTER XI

Peter went down to Merton Clevery. Mrs. Mortimer, who was not expecting him for another week, showed no particular enthusiasm when he arrived. This did not worry him. He knew very well that he came to Merton Clevery on sufferance. He came because it was his business to come. He did not like coming; but it was his business to see Rose Ellen; so he came.

They went into the orchard, and sat under the crab-apple tree. Its branches, heavy with tiny rose-flushed apples, hung down over Rose Ellen's head. She leaned against the tree, and Peter lay full length on the grass beside her and talked. He always talked to Rose Ellen, and Rose Ellen always listened. She wore a brown linen dress, and her thick, curly plait of hair hung over one shoulder. She still had the rose-leaf complexion of her babyhood. Her brown eyes were like pools.

Peter told her all about Sylvia, speaking in the rapt whisper of the devotee, and Rose Ellen listened, not looking at him. She was plaiting a yellow grass stalk into a ring.

“She must be lovely,” she said when Peter paused for breath.

“She's frightfully lovely,” said Peter. “She is … Rose Ellen, if you could see her, you'd know that you'd never seen a really lovely person before. That's how I felt the very first minute.”

“Oh, Peter de—ah,” said Rose Ellen.

She said “Petah” as she had always said it. Sometimes Peter teased her about it, but she went on doing it. Rose Ellen could be very determined and she liked saying “Petah”—that was the way she always thought of him.

“She's like—I'll tell you what she's like,” said Peter in gruff, impassioned tones. “You know what a stained-glass window looks like when you see it from outside all rough and dull. That's what most people are like. Then you go inside, and you see the light coming through the window, all the colours frightfully bright and shining like—like jewels. That's what she's like. She's like a jewel herself. She's like the most wonderful jewel in the world.”

His voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked past Rose Ellen without seeing her. He was seeing Sylvia and the Jewel, the Jewel and Sylvia; each the only one in the world, the heart's desire of men.

Rose Ellen looked at him with troubled eyes. She said at last in a small, low voice:

“Is she fond of you, Peter?”

Peter exclaimed and flung out an impatient hand.

“You don't understand a bit,” he said. “You talk as if she was just an ordinary sort of girl. I don't expect her to be
fond
of me. I don't expect her to be fond of anyone. You wouldn't talk about a queen being fond of the people who—who think it an honour to serve her, would you? She's like that.”

“Isn't she fond of people, then?” said Rose Ellen.

“I tell you she's like a queen or a princess. People ought to wait on her, and do things because of her, and—and love her frightfully, of course.”

“She isn't fond of people, then?” said Rose Ellen, still with those troubled eyes.

“She's like a jewel,” said Peter; “she's like a beautiful, shining jewel.”

Rose Ellen was silent. She slipped the plaited ring on to one of her fingers, and then, very slowly, she pulled it off again. She looked at Peter, and saw his eyes full of something which hurt.

She said, “Oh, Peter, is she?” and then, “Peter, I don't like jewels much.”

Peter stared at her, all angry scorn.

“You little mug, you don't know what you're talking about!”

Rose Ellen nodded wisely. Her hands clasped one another very tight.

“I do. I do,” she said. “Dearest has lots, and, indeed, I don't like them—not very much, Peter de—ah. They're hard, and they're cold, and the colour in them doesn't change. They're not like flowers.”

“Of course they're not,” said Peter. “Who wants them to be?”

“I do,” said Rose Ellen. “I would like them much better if they were flowers. I like things to be soft, and to smell sweet like flowers do. I think I don't really like jewels at all, Peter de—ah.”

Peter laughed rather angrily.

“You're just a little, stupid thing that doesn't know what she's talking about,” he said. “But then you haven't seen Sylvia. If you did see her, you'd simply adore her.”

Rose Ellen did not speak, she played with her plaited ring. After a long pause Peter said under his breath:

“Rose Ellen, can you keep a secret?”

Rose Ellen nodded.

“Sure? Girls are such awful blabs.”

“I'm not,” she said.

“You'd tell your Mrs. Mortimer.”

She shook her head again.

“Promise, then.”

She frowned.

“I won't promise. I said I wouldn't tell.”

“Better promise, to make sure.”

She shook her head.

“Little mug!”

He caught her hand and squeezed it teasingly. For a moment he was the old Peter again, her Peter.

“Little obstinate mug. Won't promise, won't tell?”

“I won't tell, Peter de—ah,” said Rose Ellen very seriously.

He told her all he knew about the Annam Jewel.

Rose Ellen listened, looking down at him as he lay propped on his elbows, his chin resting between two large fists, his eyes looking past Rose Ellen and the orchard, on through the years.

“When I am twenty-five …” he said, and broke off.

“Yes, Peter?”

He started, threw a fleeting glance at her, hesitated, and said, frowning:

“When I am twenty-five I shall marry Sylvia, and give her the Jewel to wear.”

It was out of his inmost heart that he spoke. Rose Ellen knew that. She said:

“It's a long time till you're twenty-five, Peter de—ah.”

Peter said nothing. After a long minute he made a sudden movement and buried his face in Rose Ellen's lap.

“I love her so frightfully,” he whispered.

Rose Ellen saw his shoulders heave. Her soft mouth trembled a little, but she did not speak. After a minute or two she dropped her little ring of plaited grass and laid a small brown hand on Peter's head.

CHAPTER XII

In 1914, Peter was twenty and Rose Ellen sixteen. Peter was in the Argentine on a horse ranch, and Rose Ellen was at a finishing school—a most expensive finishing school.

Mrs. Mortimer was a good deal relieved when she heard that Peter had left the country after a flaring row with his uncle.

The cause of the row was Peter's unqualified refusal to enter his uncle's office. Matthew Waring behaved as many another man has behaved in like circumstances. His own disappointment blinded him; he became incapable of seeing anything else. He accused Peter of ingratitude, and paraded his hurt feelings, his loneliness, and his affection for Peter, and ended with an unconditional surrender, an introduction to people of repute in the Argentine, and some really generous financial backing.

Peter's twenty-first birthday found him in France.

At twenty-five the war was behind him, and he had inherited eight hundred a year from Matthew Waring.

The years had brought odd changes. Mrs. Mortimer had turned Merton Clevery into a convalescent home. In the second year of the war she married one of her patients, an excellent, dull, jocose man of the name of Gaisford. Rose Ellen, thrilled to the depths of an unselfish heart, had shared in Dearest's happiness. It was only when she discovered that it was going to be impossible to break Major Gaisford of his habit of calling her Rosie that her romantic feelings received a slight chill.

Mrs. Gaisford continued to love Rose Ellen, but Rose Ellen was no longer the one supreme object of her existence. In 1917 her cup of happiness overflowed; she became the proud mother of a remarkably fine little boy—a healthy, red-faced, jolly infant, whom everyone pronounced to be the living image of his father. Rose Ellen adored the baby. The news, broken to her with much tact, that she must no longer consider herself the heiress of Merton Clevery left her quite unruffled. Only, after four years, instead of being at the centre of the family, she found herself, as it were, upon its edge.

During the years of the war she only saw Peter four times. At twenty she was a little lonely, without knowing it.

A week before his twenty-fifth birthday Peter went down to Merton Clevery for a few days. His affairs had kept him busy during the month that had elapsed since he had been demobilized, but he responded now to quite a gracious invitation from Mrs. Gaisford. The situation had changed: she was no longer jealous; Rose Ellen was no longer an heiress; and Peter was no longer quite ineligible.

Peter took the train, not to Merton, but to Hastney Mere. It was a fine spring day, and he had a fancy to cross the water-meadows and climb up through the beech woods to the heathery upland beyond, as he had done thirteen years before with little Rose Ellen.

The road that had seemed so long then was nothing of a tramp to Peter now. He came out on the heath in full sunshine, and walked along the grassy track until he came to the hollow where he had left Rose Ellen in the wind and the rain whilst he went forward to spy out the land. He hesitated a moment, and then turned off the path and went down into the hollow.

Rose Ellen was sitting there—not the little Rose Ellen of whom he had been thinking, with her cropped head and drenched sweater, but a quite grown up Rose Ellen in a green linen dress and a wide rush hat. She was singing under her breath.

Peter stood and looked at her. She was nice to look at. He decided approvingly that Rose Ellen grown up was a very pretty girl. He called out to her, and she jumped up and came to meet him.