BUT after Easter Miss Ley proposed that they should travel slowly back to England. Bertha had dreaded the suggestion, not only because she regretted to leave Rome, but still more because it rendered necessary some explanation. The winter had passed comfortably enough with the excuse of indifferent health, but now some other reason must be found to account for the continued absence from her husband’s side; and Bertha’s racked imagination gave her nothing. She was determined, however, under no circumstances, to return to Court Leys: after such happy freedom the confinement of body and soul would be doubly intolerable.

Edward had been satisfied with the pretext and had let Bertha go without a word. As he said, he was not the man to stand in his wife’s way when her health required her to leave him; and he could peg along all right by himself. Their letters had been fairly frequent, but on Bertha’s side a constant effort. She was always telling herself that the only rational course was to make Edward a final statement of her intentions, and then break off all communication. But the dread of fuss and bother, and of endless explanation, restrained her; and she compromised by writing as seldom as possible and adhering to the merest trivialities. She was surprised once or twice, when she had delayed her answer, to receive from him a second letter, asking with some show of anxiety why she did not write.

Miss Ley had never mentioned Edward’s name and Bertha surmised that she knew much of the truth. But she kept her own counsel: blessed are they who mind their own business and hold their tongues! Miss Ley, indeed, was convinced that some catastrophe had occurred, but true to her habit of allowing people to work out their lives in their own way, without interference, took care to seem unobservant; which was really very noble, for she prided herself on nothing more than on her talent for observation.

“The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do,” she said, “is to pretend to be a foolish one!”

Finally, she guessed Bertha’s present difficulty; and it seemed easily surmountable.

“I wish you’d come back to London with me instead of going to Court Leys,” she said. “You’ve never had a London season, have you? On the whole I think it’s amusing: the opera is very good and sometimes you see people who are quite well dressed.”

Bertha did not answer, and Miss Ley, seeing her wish to accept and at the same time her hesitation, suggested that she should come for a few weeks, well knowing that a woman’s visit is apt to spin itself out for an indeterminate time.

“I’m sorry I shan’t have room for Edward too,” said Miss Ley, smiling drily, “but my flat is very small, you know.”

 

They had been settled a few days in the flat at Eliot Mansions, when Bertha, coming in to breakfast one morning, found Miss Ley in a great state of suppressed amusement. She was quivering like an uncoiled spring; and she pecked at her toast and at her egg in a birdlike manner, which Bertha knew could only mean that some one had made a fool of himself, to the great entertainment of her aunt. Bertha began to laugh.

“Good Heavens,” she cried, “what has happened?”

“My dear—a terrible catastrophe.” Miss Ley repressed a smile, but her eyes gleamed and danced as though she were a young woman. “You don’t know Gerald Vaudrey, do you? But you know who he is.”

“I believe he’s a cousin of mine.”

Bertha’s father, who made a practice of quarrelling with all his relations, had found in General Vaudrey a brother-in-law as irascible as himself; so that the two families had never been on speaking term.

“I’ve just had a letter from his mother to say that he’s been—er, philandering rather violently with her maid, and they’re all in despair. The maid has been sent away in hysterics, his mother and his sister are in tears, and the General’s in a passion and says he won’t have the boy in his house another day. And the little wretch is only nineteen. Disgraceful, isn’t it?”

“Disgraceful!” said Bertha, smiling. “I wonder what there is in a French maid that small boys should invariably make love to her.”

“Oh, my dear, if you only saw my sister’s maid. She’s forty if she’s a day, and her complexion is like parchment very much the worse for wear.... But the awful part of it is that your Aunt Betty beseeches me to look after the boy. He’s going to Florida in a month, and meanwhile he’s to stay in London. Now, what I want to know, is how am I to keep a dissolute infant out of mischief. Is it the sort of thing that one would expect of me?”

Miss Ley waved her arms with comic desperation.

“Oh, but it’ll be great fun. We’ll reform him together. We’ll lead him on a path where French maids are not to be met at every turn and corner.”

“My dear, you don’t know what he is. He’s an utter young scamp. He was expelled from Rugby. He’s been to half-a-dozen crammers, because they wanted him to go to Sandhurst, but he utterly refused to work; and he’s been ploughed in every exam he’s gone in for—even for the militia. So now his father has given him five hundred pounds and told him to go to the devil.”

“How rude! But why should the poor boy go to Florida?”

“I suggested that. I know some people who’ve got an orange plantation there. And I dare say that the view of several miles of orange blossom will suggest to him that promiscuous flirtation may have unpleasant results.”

“I think I shall like him,” said Bertha.

“I have no doubt you will; he’s an utter scamp and rather pretty.”

Next day, when Bertha was in the drawing-room, reading, Gerald Vaudrey was shown in. She smiled to reassure him and put out her hand in the friendliest manner; she thought he must be a little confused at meeting a stranger instead of Miss Ley, and unhappy in his disgrace.

“You don’t know who I am?” she said.

“Oh yes, I do,” he replied, with a very pleasant smile. “The slavey told me Aunt Polly was out, but that you were here.”

“I’m glad you didn’t go away.”

“I thought I shouldn’t frighten you, you know.”

Bertha opened her eyes. He was certainly not at all shy, though he looked even younger than nineteen. He was a nice boy, very slight and not so tall as Bertha, with a small, quite girlish face. He had a tiny, pretty nose, and a pink and white freckled complexion. His hair was dark and curly, he wore it somewhat long, evidently aware that it was beautiful; and his handsome green eyes had a charming expression. His sensual mouth was always smiling.

“What a nice boy!” thought Bertha. “I’m sure I shall like him.”

He began to talk as if he had known her all his life, and she was entertained by the contrast between his innocent appearance and his disreputable past. He looked about the room with boyish ease and stretched himself comfortably in a big arm-chair.

“Hulloa, that’s new since I was here last!” he said, pointing to an Italian bronze.

“Have you been here often?”

“Rather! I used to come here whenever it got too hot for me at home. It’s no good scrapping with your governor, because he’s got the ooftish—it’s a jolly unfair advantage that fathers have, but they always take it. So when the old chap flew into a passion, I used to say, ‘I won’t argue with you. If you can’t treat me like a gentleman, I shall go away for a week.’ And I used to come here. Aunt Polly always gave me five quid, and said, ‘Don’t tell me how you spend it, because I shouldn’t approve; but come again when you want some more.’ She’s is a ripper, ain’t she!”

“I’m sorry she’s not in.”

“I’m rather glad, because I can have a long talk with you till she comes. I’ve never seen you before, so I have such a lot to say.”

“Have you?” said Bertha, laughing. “That’s rather unusual in young men.”

He looked so absurdly young that Bertha could not help treating him as a schoolboy; and she was amused at his communicativeness. She wanted him to tell her his escapades, but was afraid to ask.

“Are you very hungry?” She thought that boys always had appetites. “Would you like some tea?”

“I’m starving.”

She poured him out a cup, and taking it and three jam sandwiches, he sat on a footstool at her feet. He made himself quite at home.

“You’ve never seen my Vaudrey cousins, have you?” he asked, with his mouth full. “I can’t stick ’em at any price, they’re such frumps. I’ll tell ’em all about you; it’ll make them beastly sick.”

Bertha raised her eyebrows. “And do you object to frumps?”

“I simply loathe them. At the last tutor’s I was at, the old chap’s wife was the most awful old geezer you ever saw. So I wrote and told my mater that I was afraid my morals were being corrupted.”

“And did she take you away?”

“Well, by a curious coincidence, the old chap wrote the very same day, and told the pater if he didn’t remove me he’d give me the shoot. So I sent in my resignation, and told him his cigars were poisonous, and cleared out.”

“Don’t you think you’d better sit on a chair?” said Bertha. “You must be very uncomfortable on that footstool.”

“Oh no, not at all. After a Turkey carpet and a dining-room table, there’s nothing so comfy as a footstool. A chair always makes me feel respectable—and dull.”

Bertha thought Gerald rather a nice name.

“How long are you staying in London?”

“Oh, only a month, worse luck. Then I’ve got to go to the States to make my fortune and reform.”

“I hope you will.”

“Which? One can’t do both at once, you know. You make your money first, and you reform afterwards, if you’ve got time. But whatever happens, it’ll be a good sight better than sweating away at an everlasting crammer’s. If there is one man I can’t stick at any price it’s the army crammer.”

“You have a large experience of them, I understand.”

“I wish you didn’t know all my past history. Now I shan’t have the sport of telling you.”

“I don’t think it would be edifying.”

“Oh yes, it would. It would show you how virtue is downtrodden (that’s me), and how vice is triumphant. I’m awfully unlucky; people sort of conspire together to look at my actions from the wrong point of view. I’ve had jolly rough luck all through. First I was bunked from Rugby. Well, that wasn’t my fault. I was quite willing to stay, and I’m blowed if I was worse than anybody else. The pater blackguarded me for six weeks, and said I was bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Well, you know, he’s simply awfully bald; so at last I couldn’t help saying that I didn’t know where his grey hairs were going to, but it didn’t much look as if he meant to accompany them. So, after that, he sent me to a crammer who played poker. Well, he skinned me of every shilling I’d got, and then wrote and told the pater I was an immoral young dog, and corrupting his house.”

“I think we’d better change the subject, Gerald,” said Bertha.

“Oh, but you must have the sequel. The next place I went to, I found none of the other fellows knew poker; so of course I thought it a sort of merciful interposition of Providence to help me to recoup myself. I told ’em not to lay up treasures in this world, and walloped in thirty quid in four days; then the old thingamygig (I forget his name, but he was a parson) told me I was making his place into a gambling-hell, and that he wouldn’t have me another day in his house. So off I toddled, and I stayed at home for six months. That gave me the fair hump, I can tell you.”

The conversation was disturbed by the entrance of Miss Ley.

“You see we’ve made friends,” said Bertha.

“Gerald always does that with everybody. He’s the most gregarious person. How are you, Lothario?”

“Flourishing, my Belinda,” he replied, flinging his arms round Miss Ley’s neck to her great delight and pretended indignation.

“You’re irrepressible,” she said. “I expected to find you in sackcloth and ashes, penitent and silent.”

“My dear Aunt Polly, ask me to do anything you like, except to repent and to hold my tongue.”

“You know your mother has asked me to look after you.”

“I like being looked after—and is Bertha going to help?”

“I’ve been thinking it over,” added Miss Ley. “And the only way I can think to keep you out of mischief is to make you spend your evenings with me. So you’d better go home now and dress. I know there’s nothing you like better than changing your clothes.”

Meanwhile Bertha observed with astonishment that Gerald was simply devouring her with his eyes. It was impossible not to see his evident admiration.

“The boy must be mad,” she thought, but could not help feeling a little flattered.

“He’s been telling me some dreadful stories,” she said to Miss Ley, when he had gone. “I hope they’re not true.”

“Oh, I think you must take all Gerald says with a grain of salt. He exaggerates dreadfully, and all boys like to seem Byronic. So do most men, for the matter of that!”

“He looks so young. I can’t believe that he’s really very naughty.”

“Well, my dear, there’s no doubt about his mother’s maid. The evidence is of the—most conclusive order. I know I should be dreadfully angry with him, but every one is so virtuous now-a-days that a change is quite refreshing. And he’s so young, he may reform. Englishmen start galloping to the devil, but as they grow older they nearly always change horses and amble along gently to respectability, a wife, and seventeen children.”

“I like the contrast of his green eyes and his dark hair.”

“My dear, it can’t be denied that he’s made to capture the feminine heart. I never try to resist him myself. He’s so extremely convincing when he tells you some outrageous fib.”

Bertha went to her room and looked at herself in the glass, then put on her most becoming dinner-dress.

“Good gracious,” said Miss Ley. “You’ve not put that on for Gerald? You’ll turn the boy’s head, he’s dreadfully susceptible.”

“It’s the first one I came across,” replied Bertha, innocently.