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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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"ANOTHER engagement! I'm sick to death of hearing of them! Brayne to the ginger-haired Ford girl. I thought he was one of your men, Virginia? How on earth have you managed to mull it again?"
Virginia's fingers tightened round the arms of her cane lounge-chair. From the slight contraction of her mouth it was plain that the news had hit her hard.
She was a tall girl, of gracious figure, with greeny-grey eyes, and the tint of the apple eaten by Eve deep-grained in her ripe cheek. A sea-green ribbon was woven in her red hair.
"I leave it to you, partner," she answered, speaking with an effort.
The reply seemed to enrage her companion—a blonde of slight build. In her white dress she looked more youthful than Virginia, and one had to get past the tulle veil that swathed her hat to credit the fact that she was her mother.
"It's appalling!" Mrs. Lake rattled her bangles angrily. "Girls taking advantage of this unusually gay season, and going off like flies in winter, and yet you remain, sticking on my hands like a porous plaster. You seem to start well in the running. It passes my understanding how you let the chances slip through your fingers? Goodness knows, you're old enough to have learned wisdom! You're in your twenty-eighth year."
"That's a most unsporting way of saying a girl is twenty-seven."
"Girl! A woman!"
"Rub it in!" Virginia straightened her figure in the lounge-chair. "Look here, mother—woman to woman, then! Without gloves. Don't you think that I'm as anxious as you are to get married? You don't give me pressing invitations to minister to your old age. I suppose you've settled never to have one. Doesn't all this come harder on me? Give me credit for having tried. D'you know my name at the club? One of your special friends told me—Diana!"
Mrs. Lake looked blank.
"Well, complimentary, surely! A goddess, wasn't she? The sporting one, with the goody-goody character? H'm! Not very appropriate, considering that you're no good at games, and nearly every man in the place has flirted with you."
"It fits me to a hair, my dear mother. The men chose that name well. Diana was a huntress!"
Mrs. Lake took the bitterness in her daughter's voice as a personal slight.
"Quite right, too!" she said. "It's your duty to find a mate. It's the whole scheme of Nature. Really, it's quite impious of you to take that tone."
"All right, I'll turn religious, and grab."
"Then you'd better be quick, for there's not much left to grab," was the nettled reply. "This afternoon, in fact, at the shrimping picnic. I've heard that Kingdom is off next week. He's got a billet in India. Every other possible man is now snapped up, so he seems your last chance this year, and by next you'll be earmarked as a failure. For mercy's sake, take it! It's common talk he's been hanging round Viva Smythe lately."
Virginia took no notice of Mrs. Lake's remark. Her eyes were fixed on the white road outside the bungalow. A man, with dark, carven features, that looked classic under his white panama, was passing in the shade of the trees. His face lit up as he bowed to the ladies on the passion-flower wreathed verandah, and Mrs. Lake noticed that the smile lingered on Virginia's lips after he had passed. Bitterly she regretted the scarcity of men, which resulted in a mere schoolmaster being admitted to their set.
Virginia's eyes were fixed on the white road outside the bungalow.
"Are you listening?" she asked sharply. Virginia started.
"Oh, Viva Smythe? But do you think she is a serious rival? She's such a very pretty girl, and Lord Bristol has paid her so much attention lately that she would hardly notice a mere engineer."
"She's sense enough, pretty or not, to realise her goods in the best market. Looks are a perishable commodity. She won't turn up her nose at Kingdom. Not she! Once the fleet goes, she knows she'll be stranded, high and dry, for the winter, on the shelf. Besides, Bristol is simply amusing himself. A mere hanger-on. When a man of his stamp has the pick of the pretty women of the place to flirt with, it isn't likely he will concentrate on one."
"She may be in love with him, though!"
Something in Virginia's voice made Mrs. Lake stare at her daughter.
"I don't pretend to understand you, Virginia," she said, at last. "You can't be a fool. It's against Nature. When I was seven years younger than you, I couldn't count my proposals on my fingers, and your poor father had brains, if nothing else. Why are you a failure?"
Virginia's sole answer was to press her lips together more closely. With an uneasy flicker of suspicion, Mrs. Lake's thoughts flitted to the schoolmaster with the handsome face.
She snorted violently as a protest against such an outrage of Nature, and then went indoors to paint her face with the quintessence of art—her starched, muslin frills whispering spitefully to each other as she moved.
Virginia remained staring at the great wash of peacock-blue ocean that pounded in on the beach in a thick, creaming slab of white foam. She had grown so thoroughly sick of this sun-steeped place—this beauty-spot, dropped on a corner of the Devonshire coast, with its superfluity of women, its scarcity of males, and the competition therefor. No floating population swept through it habitually, to freshen its secluded but sophisticated circles. But in the summer, during the visit of the fleet and the Territorial camps, it broke into a brief but fevered round of gaiety. These were the days of corn in Egypt—the days of marriage and giving in marriage, when the visitors, charmed with the beauty and the unconventional hospitality supplied the capital, and the local girls put in unstinted quantities of sweated labour.
Sick of it all! Virginia recalled Patrick Kingdom's face, with its rounded, determined features, thickly peppered with freckles. A man to be trusted by men and women alike. That way lay freedom!
As she gazed out into the great blue-and-white world, she whispered a word. Her thoughts were on a man, but the name on her lips was none of his. It was her own—"Diana!"
THE beach presented a gay sight that afternoon, as groups of white-clad men, and girls—gay in coloured muslins and flower-wreathed hats—laughed and chatted against the background of dark cliffs.
When Virginia Lake arrived in the company of her mother, a tall man, with slack, handsome features, stopped chattering to a little circle of four or five girls, and lazily surveyed the red-haired Amazon in her sea-green gown.
"Diana looks ripping this afternoon," he remarked to his circle.
Other flannel-clad men might prowl the beach partnerless, but Lord Bristol was never in the position of a poor tiger with no Christian. At the present moment he had collected round him quite a little Sunday-school of the prettiest.
"Yes; got up to kill!" remarked a girl in mauve.
"Good luck to her hunting!"
"When Di 'pics,' Kingdom packs. That's what always happens on these picnics. She'll run the poor man to death, as usual!"
Bristol's languid voice broke into the laughter.
"Girls, girls, leave her a rag! Why have you all such a down on Diana? To my mind, there's something stimulating about a red-haired girl. You never know when she's going to box your ears. I've half a mind to chuck the whole lot of you and take on Di this afternoon."
His lordship had discovered that there was no censorship of speech in this stranded townlet, and availed himself of the name of Liberty, to take liberties. The women, ever since his arrival, in doing their best to spoil a sound-cored nature, had, so far, only affected his manners.
"What if she does chase the men?" Bristol continued. "Very sporting of her. Haven't you chased me the whole morning, Viva? You only ran me to earth at the club because I was due there for a drink."
Viva Smythe contorted her really beautiful features to a grimace.
"Oh, you!" she said.
A belated hamper arrived at that moment, and had a flattering reception. Boats were pushed off, and soon the party was skimming over the sapphire water to the island.
Virginia dipped her fingers into the warm sea. She was seated in the same boat as Kingdom and the schoolmaster, Madder—a tactful arrangement which she had stage-managed herself by shamelessly beckoning the men.
Kingdom ducked his head to get under the shade of her hat.
"Spare me a few minutes, some time, will you?" he asked. "I want to tell you something."
He looked earnestly into her greenish eyes, and Virginia swallowed something in her throat before she answered:
"All right!"
Turning quickly to Madder, she devoted herself to him until they reached the island.
Bristol, who was helping Viva over the slippery, seaweed-covered rocks, turned and watched Virginia as she and Madder scrambled off together.
"Deuced handsome chap, the schoolmaster!" he commented. "Bit unscrupulous of Di to use him in the game. When she's brought Kingdom to the scratch, she'll give him what our American friends call 'the frozen mitt.'"
"Do you mean she is leading him on just to make Pat Kingdom jealous?" asked Viva quickly, a shade of anxiety to be detected in her voice.
"Shade of Kipling! Where were you raised?
"If She grow suddenly gracious, reflect, is it all for Thee?
The Black-Buck is stalked by the Bullock, and Man by Jealousy."
Bristol's laughter reached Virginia, as she probed in a pool for treasures.
"I'm glad someone is enjoying the picnic," she said. "Nice, simple taste. I shall suspect him soon of a secret passion for cold rice-pudding."
Madder looked down at her intently. The fine lines of his face relaxed to an unusual softness.
"Why not?" he asked. "Life's all right. It's the grizzlers who are wrong. Virginia, it's awful cheek on my part, but-well, somehow, from the first, it struck me that you'd missed it. I used to wonder why. This is such a ripping place. And you've everything—perfect health, good looks (excuse me), means, and so on. Lately, I've thought I've hit it. I seem to know what's wrong with you. The truth, now! Don't you need a friend?"
Virginia gave a short laugh.
"No. I need a husband."
She laughed again at the look of dismay that clouded Madder's expressive face.
"I'm sorry. I seem to have blundered. I—I quite thought you were lonely," he stammered. "I've tried to be your friend, as you know, but I fancied that she—"
"She!" Virginia turned quickly. "Do you mean to tell me that you're like all the rest? That you're going to be married?"
"Do you mean to tell me that you're like all the rest?"
Madder nodded.
"She'll be coming here almost directly. Time, too! She's a Sister of Mercy, and has been killing herself in an East London parish—slaving until there's nothing left but starched linen and soul."
Virginia averted her head.
"How delightful!" she said at last. "I'm very glad to hear of your happiness. Only hope it will last! Look at this lovely piece of seaweed—all rose colour and delicate tracery. Up it comes! And now it's nothing but a slimy tangle. Such is life! Well, well, I suppose you couldn't prevail on your fiance to bring along a Brother of Mercy for me?"
Madder stared at the violet sea-line, with sombre eyes. Virginia, looking up, saw the pain in his tightly drawn mouth. She stretched out her hand to him.
"I wish you happiness with all my heart," she said, in a low voice. "Indeed—indeed I do! Forgive me for just now. I didn't mean one word, really. But I seem to have come to a crisis in my life. It's a case of keeping my nerve, and I'm all on wires. I had to let out, or scream. I'm better now. And you've always been a real friend."
Madder's face brightened as he gripped her hand.
"Quite understand," he said gruffly, his thoughts winging to the club gossip. "Nothing like a safety-valve. Glad I've been of some use. Here comes Kingdom, so I'll clear."
His classic features looked slightly knowing, as the young engineer forged his way to Virginia's side.
With the advent of Kingdom, the real interest of the picnic began. The pleasure-makers, so far, had pretended to be satisfied with the simple joys of shrimping, but their sophisticated souls were waiting for the spice of human interest. Scandal was their bread of life, and so hot was the popular excitement that, almost directly, they had the couple on toast. Their every movement was watched from afar, and their expressions commented on by those who passed within easy range.
Mrs. Lake clasped the hand of her chief friend—a pretty, rouged lady—who apparently seemed to own only a Christian name.
"Oh, Dot, here they come! Tell me, for I can't see so far! Do you think she's brought it off?"
Her curiosity was shared by the rest of the picnickers. Virginia and Kingdom were subjected to a battery of furtive glances during the row back to the beach, but they bore the scrutiny with wooden faces.
When tea was finally a thing of the past, and the sun had fallen into the heart of the flaming sea, the party began to break itself into couples for the homeward stroll through the shadows.
Bristol, searching for Viva, whose pretty face gave her first place in his facile fancy, was staggered to see that Kingdom had forestalled him.
He gave a low whistle of pure astonishment as they walked off, Viva's face, lost under the shadow of her wisteria-loaded hat, turned up towards Kingdom.
Wheeling round, he found that he was left alone on the beach with Virginia.
He accepted the change with his usual philosophy.
"What luck!" he said. "First time I've seen you to-day. You have been in such demand. Ripping time we've had. I expect you'll never forget this picnic? As for me, I shall think of it, this time tomorrow, when I'm off for my cruise."
"Your cruise, yes. You must have had a sea-gull's feather in your pillow. But is it really true that you're coming back again?"
"Rather! As you know, I've been pretty nearly everywhere—no ties, and can't stick ordinary society—but I've never struck a spot I like so well as this."
"It's not always so gay. Isn't Viva Smythe a pretty girl?"
"You're all pretty girls here. Ah, well! So Kingdom goes next week, too? Lucky beggar—he may not go alone?"
Bristol lost no time in working round to the point on which his idle curiosity had been aroused.
"No; I should say there would be a captain and crew, merely to look after the boat. It's usual."
Bristol only laughed at the rebuff.
"D'you know, Miss Lake," he said, "when I saw you this afternoon, I thought you looked different, somehow. It was the expression of your eyes. I've seen it before, and it puzzled me where. Now I know. It's the look that every man-jack on the Stock Exchange wears during a critical deal."
Virginia's face had grown a trifle pale, and her voice was ominously quiet.
"Thank you for your interest. So you imagined that I had some big deal on today? Any betting on the result, as is usual in these cases?"
"If there were, I'd lay my money on you, Di!"
Lord Bristol had gone too far. For the first time during his stay, he realised that there was a limit.
He positively quailed as Virginia turned swiftly on him, in white-hot fury.
"What did you call me?" she asked.
"What did you call me?"
"Nothing. I said 'Why?' Only that. Oh, Miss Lake!"
He started to run also; and then, conscious of the ridiculous picture they presented, slackened his pace. He, alone, of all the male picnickers, walked home without a girl.
VIRGINIA was buried under her curtains that night, when she
received a visit. Mrs. Lake ran into her room in a muslin
wrapper, and with her fleece of yellow hair screwed in
curling-pins round her lean face. She stood at the foot of the
cot, and clutched the rail with nervous fingers.
"D'you know what I've heard?" she cried shrilly. "That cat, Dot, screamed it from the road as she passed just now. Kingdom has proposed to Viva Smythe tonight!"
"Ah!"
It was almost a sob that broke from Virginia's lips.
"A nice laughing-stock you've made of yourself; it's all over the place already. You've let every chance slip. I see nothing for you now but to marry that wretched schoolmaster."
Virginia forced herself to speak, with stiff lips.
"That wretched schoolmaster, as you call him, is engaged to marry another woman. She is a Sister of Mercy."
"Mercy!" Mrs. Lake unconsciously snatched at the last word. "What! You've lost him, too? Virginia, you're an utter fool!"
When Virginia was left alone, she lay staring, half the night, into the darkness. Apparently the game was ended and lost. Yet her eyes preserved their look of anxious strain. She still faced east.
SIX months later Lord Bristol found himself back in the
place—that paradise of good links and pretty girls. He
stood at the door of a ballroom, watching the couples revolve,
before he himself joined in the whirl. His eyes dwelt approvingly
on the dainty gowns of the women, for he had lately been where
dress was considered—and was—a mere trifle. He hummed
the air of the valse. Although his collar rubbed his neck, it was
good to wear evening-clothes once more.
A man hailed him with a shout: "Back again, Bristol? You look fit as a fiddle after your cruise. Nose nicely skinned!"
"Rather! I sloughed my old skin after surfing. The Pacific tossed me up like a pancake, and I was shark-bait many a time, but I put in a clinking time, roughing it. It's great to be back again to slack. Hallo! That's another new face. Pretty girl, too! Introduce me."
"You didn't put off the old man with the skin," grinned Beer, as they stalked the muslin-clad debutante.
Three dances passed before Beer again met Bristol. He noticed directly that some of his lordship's exuberance had fizzled flat.
"Pipped?" he inquired. "What's up?"
Bristol rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Don't know! This is such a slow affair. Not a bit like the thing I've looked forward to lately. Doesn't seem like the dances we had before my cruise. Such a stuffy set! I've danced with nothing but flappers and their mothers. Bread-and-butter and stale crusts. What's become of all the pretty, jolly girls—the Fords, the Duroys, Viva Smythe?"
Beer laughed.
"Ah, you came here in our festive days. All the girls made hay then. Regular clearance sale. All the old stock gone, and nothing but new lines. Viva Smythe is in India, and half the others are either on their honeymoons, or else deep in trousseaux. But there's still one of the Old Brigade left—Diana! By Jove, she looks stunning tonight!"
Beer's admiration was genuine, although his blood was lukewarm after many years of married life. But to Bristol, fresh from the wastes of blue waters, Virginia, as she drew near, seemed a goddess. Her eyes were brilliant with excitement and her copper hair was a flaming glory.
In another minute she was floating round the room with Bristol. After the schoolgirl debutantes, who trod on his toes, it was pure bliss to dance with a perfect partner, and several valses slipped by before they stopped for breath. It was not until they sat in a shaded alcove, under a palm, that Bristol with a guilty pang remembered his parting haired girl.
"You don't know how good it was to see you again," he said, "I was feeling horribly depressed, like a Rip Van Winkle, among all those children. Yet—the last time we met you were thirsting for my blood. And all because I called you a pretty name—Diana. And Diana, I believe, is the same as Pallas Athene—the Goddess of Wisdom."
The speech seemed to amuse Virginia.
"And yet, my mother tells me once daily, and twice on Sundays, that I'm a fool, and a perfect fool."
"Then I, for one, suffer fools gladly. But why does she slate you?"
"Because I'm not Mrs. Johnson, Keith, Harrow, Brayne, Madder, Way, or Kingdom."
"Good heavens! That crew! Not one fit to lace your shoes! It's just struck me. You were right. It was absurd to invent a new name for you when your own just expresses you. Virginia. To me, you are just the girl. The girl."
History repeats itself. When the dance was over, Mrs. Lake, panting with excitement and a tight lace, padded into her daughter's room. Virginia stood in her shimmering white dress by the open window.
"Virginia! I didn't see you the whole evening. Who did you have supper with?"
"Lord Bristol!"
"But—but you had six valses with him. I counted."
"And sat out all the rest. Anything wrong with him? It will be best china and teacake to-morrow, mother, or the nearest we can do as a substitute. He is coming to see me—and you."
"Virginia!" Mrs. Lake's voice skipped an octave. "Don't tell me that you—you have secured Bristol! A non-marrying man. An undreamt-of parti! While prettier girls have had to put up with subalterns and naval sprats! How on earth did you manage it?"
Virginia gave a happy laugh of triumph.
"It was a great game," she said. "It was almost too much for me. Once, I nearly lost my nerve, and let go. Madder saved me then. So much was at stake. It was so awful to remember every year told, and to run the risks of being left—lonely all my life. And it was touch-and-go over Viva Smythe. If Pat Kingdom had not proposed, and cleared her out of the place, I stood to lose all. She was such a pretty girl."
Mrs. Lake's perceptions were keen.
"Do you mean to tell me that Kingdom proposed to you, after all, at the picnic?" she asked. "You refused him? And Viva had him on the hop?"
Virginia looked at her mother and smiled. At that moment Mrs. Lake felt very young and inexperienced.
"Have you noticed, mother, that when a butterfly has a garden of flowers, he flits from one to the other? Shut him in a room with one rose, and he settles on that."
Mrs. Lake gasped as the darkness grew luminous. She thought of the men who had been attracted to her daughter and lost by tactless handling. The Club stories recurred to her—tales of men alarmed by vigorous pursuit, or shocked by sudden exhibitions of temper, fleeing, in pique, or for shelter, to other girls. Now, she seemed to see Virginia in another guise—shadowy and all-pervading—playing the part of Providence or universal matchmaker, under the guise of a neglected maiden.
"Darling!" she cried. "How I misjudged you! You are my own daughter, and a wonderfully clever woman!"
Virginia's face clouded at her mother's praises. She drew away from the embrace.
"No, no!" she cried vehemently. "You are wrong. Do you think I played for money, or a coronet? I played only for Love. I played the great game that Eve teaches to all her daughters, when they love with all their strength!"
She stood up, tall and triumphant, her eyes burning, and the tint of the apple glowing red in her cheek.
It was the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.