Morison was also beaming upon her. “You must come and visit us in New York,” he said. “We’re imitating England and becoming too democratic to talk about ancestors, even when we’ve got ’em, and we usually haven’t.”
“Why, Nolly,” cried Emily, who was Californian when she wanted to be audacious, but valued her New York to its ultimate vanishing drop of azure blood, “you know your mother was a —”
“Pauper. She hooked my father, which is more to the point, and I’m in the race for Millionaire Street, which is the whole point.”
“Oh, you little bleating Wall Street Calf! Such a little one, too, Miss Edis.”
“I might be a bigger one if you spent less. What are we here for, anyhow?” he asked, as Fanny, apprehending a domestic scene, moved away. “Dan can take care of his own affairs, and I feel as if I were on a ship in midocean with the wireless out of order.”
“What man ever could manage his own affairs? It would have been cruel to let Dan come alone, and I know I can help him out. We mustn’t scrap and frighten Mrs. France, or she’ll think the temper is in the Tay family, whereas it’s always your fault —”
But she laughed good-naturedly, extracting the sting, and Morison, who never quite understood her, was mollified and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m going to flirt with that little West Indian girl who doesn’t know the first thing about life and wants to know it all in five minutes. Great fun. Serve you right, too, for bringing me here.”
“Run along,” said his wife, indulgently, and he joined Fanny, who was talking to Tay, and told her that the St. Kitts girls were coming to the party on Thursday night. But Fanny had lost all interest in the married man now that a single one had appeared, and gave him her shoulder with a young girl’s brutality. A moment later, when Mrs. Winstone entered, she deliberately drew Tay into the embrasure of one of the windows. She had curled her lip at her grandaunt’s appearance, but the rest applauded, and Mrs. Winstone was secretly delighted with herself. She had abandoned her usual discretion and got herself up like a woman of thirty. There was rouge on her cheeks, a flower in her youthfully dressed hair, and a pink chiffon scarf floated over her white gown.
“Good! Good!” cried Mrs. Macmanus. “How does it work?”
“Oh, quite all right. Only I was made to feel as if I had escaped from the mummy room in the British Museum and stolen my grandniece’s clothes.”
“Upon my word, Maria,” said Pirie, gallantly, “I didn’t know you could do it. Ten to one Tay does fall in love with you. Why not? Julia’s got a bee in her bonnet. We men don’t like bees as domestic pets. They sting.”
“Curious that even the young men are as old-fashioned as ever, while the women go marching on,” said Mrs. Macmanus, unrolling her knitting. “What will you all do for partners, by and by?”
“Oh, we’ll still marry them,” said Mrs. Morison, patronizingly. “They give us our little romance, and it’s no part of our policy to let the race die out.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mrs. Macmanus, looking over her eye-glasses. “So you, too, are a suffragette. You never gave us a hint.”
“I forgot about it down here. But last winter in New York, everybody who was anybody, or wanted to be, went in for it. Two or three of the rich and fashionable women whose names are regular electric signs—designed by the press—great gilt way—took it up, and all the rank outsiders fairly fell over themselves to get into the new Suffrage societies, and shake hands with those Brunhildes come down off their fire-girt perch. Makes me sick. I believe in it because I know it’s coming.”
“Ha! Ha!” cried Pirie. “A good patriot always loves the top.”
“Don’t be cynical, Pirie,” said Mrs. Macmanus, who had not failed to note the longing glances cast in Fanny’s direction. “It can’t be laid to extreme youth in your case.”
“Now, why is a man always called cynical when he tells the truth? No limelight, no martyrs.”
“Oh, what a sophisticated old lot we are,” said Mrs. Macmanus, with a sigh. “I wish I knew as little as that charming Fanny. She is youth—innocent barbarous youth—personified. Look at her flirting with her aunt’s lover. I always said that honor was an acquired virtue.”
“Sh—sh—” whispered Mrs. Winstone, and she sprang to her feet.
Mrs. Edis stood in the terrace doorway leaning on her stick. She looked like an allegory of the past, the uncompromising disillusioned past, which has come in contact with none of the bridges that connect with the present. Her keen contemptuous gaze had just lit upon Fanny and Tay, when the company, made aware of her presence, rose precipitately, and were presented by Mrs. Winstone.
“I bid you all welcome to my house,” said Mrs. Edis, formally.
Fanny had hastily marshalled Tay into the circle. Mrs. Edis favored him with a piercing look which gave him a sensation of acute discomfort.
“Good lord!” he thought. “Here’s an enemy worthy of any man’s mettle. What a family!”
Mrs. Winstone almost laughed aloud as she met her sister’s glance of disgust. It was long since she had enjoyed herself so thoroughly. To outwit Jane and embroil everybody else was better for the nerves than mere vegetating.
Mrs. Edis turned to Fanny.
“Where is Julia?”
“I don’t know, Grandmother.”
“Go and find her. She must not appear to want in hospitality.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Sit down, all of you.”
The company did as commanded, Tay in ostentatious proximity to Mrs. Winstone. There was a moment’s profound silence, Mrs. Edis, like George Washington, having the rare gift of immersing any company in an ice bath. Mrs. Macmanus would never have dreamed of making conversation unless she had something to say; Pirie and Morison, snubbed by Fanny, were both sulky; Mrs. Winstone was flirting with Tay under the eagle eye of her sister, who poured out the tea. Finally, Mrs. Morison, with the American woman’s sense of conversational responsibility, rushed into the breach, after peremptorily motioning to her husband to sit beside her on the little sofa: here was an opportunity for a parade of domestic American bliss.
“Oh, Mrs. Edis!” she cried. “We were just talking when you came in— Aren’t you quite too frightfully proud of Mrs. France?”
“Frightfully?”
“Our dreadful slang. I mean—well, aren’t you too proud of her for words?”
“And pray why should I be unable to express myself? Julia was always a good child.”
“Oh, of course—but it isn’t often that any one is as good as Mrs. France, and so tremendously clever.”
“I am glad to infer that you think well of Julia.” Mrs. Edis, reflecting that society was even more silly than in her own day, wondered how long these people would stay. She observed that the company was looking amused, but before she had time to speculate upon the cause, she forgot the rest of them, in her keen observation of Tay. He was ignoring Mrs. Winstone and frowning at his sister. But in another moment she forgot even him.
“Oh, I don’t count,” cried the desperate Mrs. Morison. “I’m merely trying to make myself agreeable, in return for your gracious hospitality. It’s what the world thinks.”
“The world?”
“Surely, you must feel proud that she’s quite the hope of the party, a flaming torch. If she remains in London, why, she’ll be its only leader—a regular queen.”
“Queen?”
Mrs. Edis set the tea-pot violently down.
“Prime Minister, you know, or something like that,” said Pirie. “Strange things are happening.”
“Are you making game of me?” cried Mrs. Edis, furiously.
“Oh, Pirie never makes game of anybody but himself,” said Mrs. Macmanus, soothingly.
“I beg your pardon, then, but it sounds pure gammon to me.”
“It does to many, dear madam.”
Mrs. Edis was staring straight before her, the company forgotten. “Queen.” That still active brain, never rusty, nor clouded, had leaped back to the night when she and old M’sieu had pored over Julia’s horoscope. “Queen.” The word had almost been written. They had compromised on a mere peerage, as the times no longer permitted the marriage of a sovereign with a subject. But—times change—Julia had unwittingly made her feel like an old crab—moreover, the twentieth century was to witness the birth of a new solar year, the year of Man. Might that be but a generic term? The woman’s movement had been abhorrent to her, shocking every aristocratic instinct, much as she despised men. But she had begun to realize that it was both portentous and imperishable. If Julia was to lead it, if in it lay her child’s only chance to achieve a vast and splendid distinction—well, she was not too old to reconstruct her ideas, bury her inherited ideals, move, herself, with the times.
She became aware that a pall-like silence had descended upon her guests.
“Pardon me,” she said more graciously. “I am an old woman and my mind wanders. What you said startled me. A great future was predicted for my child at birth—and the time came when I made sure that she was to be a duchess —”
“Duchess!” cried Mrs. Morison. “Oh, dear me, a duchess isn’t in it these days with a great public leader. Think of all the dukedoms that have been bought with brand new American dollars. It’s now quite a commonplace position.”
“Is this true?”
“True as Suffrage, dear madam,” said Mrs. Macmanus. “There are even English duchesses that are nobodies. This is the day of the individual.”
Once more Mrs. Edis stared straight before her. “I see! I see!” she muttered.
Tay sprang to his feet and bore down upon his sister.
“For God’s sake change the subject,” he said, in a tone of concentrated fury. “Can’t you see what is going on in that old woman’s mind? I wish you had stayed in New York.”
“I kept getting in deeper and deeper,” said Mrs. Morison, apologetically, but enjoying herself, nevertheless. “That old woman would rattle anybody. Here comes your Julia.”
Julia had hidden when she heard Fanny’s voice, but on second thoughts had concluded not to arouse her mother’s suspicions. She had therefore hastily put herself into a soft white house frock with a floating green scarf, and looked little older than Fanny.
She barely glanced at Tay, but smiled brightly at the other guests. “Good afternoon, everybody. How delightful to see the old house so gay. A very strong cup, please, mother.”
“Oh, not so awfully gay,” cried Mrs. Morison. “We’ve been talking Suffrage.”
“No more of that at present,” said Mrs. Edis, peremptorily. “Fanny, stop trying to engage Mr. Tay’s attention. He came to Nevis to see your grandaunt. Go and talk to Mrs. Macmanus. Young girls should always strive to make themselves agreeable to elderly ladies.”
Fanny obeyed sulkily, and the company, now put completely at its ease, fell upon the tea and cakes, which Mrs. Edis finally remembered to order Denny to pass. Tay bent over Mrs. Winstone and shot a glance at Julia. She was consumed with silent laughter. His eyes grew imploring, but he moved them with a sudden sense of discomfort. Mrs. Edis looked as if about to launch her cane at him.
Mrs. Macmanus, fearing they would all break into hysterical laughter, addressed herself to Mrs. Edis. “We have been admiring your wonderful old house. Would it be asking too much to let us see more of it?”
“And the delicious grounds,” cried Mrs. Morison, determined to acquit herself and give Dan his opportunity to talk to Julia. “I’ve never seen anything like those terraces rising up the mountain.”
Mrs. Edis rose. “Give me your arm, Julia. I shall be happy to show our guests the house, and then you may take them up to the cone.”
“I’ll not go,” said Tay to Mrs. Winstone. “I shall stay here. Please get Julia away from them and send her back.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Winstone, good-naturedly. “Possess your soul in patience!”
“I’ve a small stock left!”
VI
Alone, a moment later, Tay was contemplating a short excursion into the garden with the solace of a cigarette, when he heard light rapid footsteps on the terrace flags. He turned eagerly. But it was Fanny who came running in. Her face was flushed with triumph, and her eyes sparkled under their heavy lids.
“I gave Granny the slip,” she exclaimed. “Let’s stay here and make Julia jealous.”
“But your grandmother will be unmerciful—”
“Oh, she never knows whether I’m round or not.”
“You make me feel that you lead a most unnatural life.”
“You may just better believe I do—dodging Granny, and watching cane grow. Oh, do make me feel like a girl in a book. You had just begun to tell me about that wonderful San Francisco when Granny had to come in. Tell me more. It will be something to dream of even if I never can see it.”
Tay resigned himself and sat down.
“Oh, you’ll see it, all right. You will visit us.”
“But suppose Julia won’t become an American and divorce that lunatic of hers.”
“But she shall, and you must help me. Will you?”
“If you will swear to take me away and find me a husband as perfectly fascinating as yourself.”
“Good lord!” Tay almost blushed. Then he looked at her suspiciously. Was the little devil as innocent as she pretended, or was this merely the instinct of the born coquette, crudely expressing itself? “Oh, you’ll meet a hundred far better worth your while than I am.”
“I don’t believe it,” announced Fanny, who had never removed her eyes from his face. (“What’s an aunt?” she was thinking, “especially when she’s old enough to be your mother?”) “And have they all got as much money?” she added aloud.
This certainly was ingenuousness! “Oh, I’m a pauper compared with several I could name. Any one of them will succumb at once.”
“Julia says she will take me back to London and ask a friend of hers, Lady Dark, to give me a gay season, but San Francisco sounds even more fascinating. Haven’t you any titles in America?”
“Oh, titles without number. Especially honorables. Every ex-official, if he’s bagged a big enough office, expects ‘honorable’ on his letters for the rest of his life. And once a judge always a judge. State senators are addressed as if they were old Romans, and the militia turns out even more life titles than the bench.”
But the American humor was beyond Fanny. She pouted. “Tell me something really interesting. Tell me about a whole day of life in San Francisco. Tell me everything you think and feel and do.”
“Great Scott!”
“Oh,” cried Fanny, throwing herself halfway across the little table. “If you only knew how I want to know—everything! everything!”
“Oh, you’ll learn fast enough. Nevis will never hold you. But I’ll help you out, by George! It would be some fun to turn you loose and watch you make things hum.”
“How perfectly heavenly to hear some one talking about poor little me! Tell me more about myself.”
Tay laughed indulgently. “You are a baby!”
“Don’t laugh at me. Oh—I’m not a bit like Julia. I’d have killed that husband of hers long before she shut him up. Queer how different people in the same family can be. They all seem to think that Julia’s not much changed—although she’s really quite old now. But it would have made a devil out of me.”
“I believe you!” And he added unwillingly, “How interesting you will be when you are a few years older.”
“Not if I stay on Nevis.”
“Oh, don’t let that worry you.”
She brought her face so close to his that he fancied he felt a light shock of electricity. “Swear it!” she whispered eagerly. “You look as if you could do anything you wanted to do. I haven’t felt a bit encouraged by Julia’s promises, but if you promise me —”
Tay stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a go,” he said. “Trust me to turn you loose among our squabs the first chance I get —”
“Fanny, dear, will you show Mr. and Mrs. Morison the orchards? They are waiting for you.”
Julia’s tones had never been so sweet, her large gray eyes so cool; but as Fanny, with a sharp, “Oh, very well, Aunt Julia,” went forth on a leaden foot, both voice and expression changed.
“You were flirting with Fanny!”
“So I was,” said Tay, coolly. “That girl’s spoiling for a flirtation. Well, I’ll gratify her if you leave me to my own devices on this beastly island.”
“You’d never do such a thing! Destroy that child’s peace of mind —”
“Peace of mind nothing. That’s not the sort that gets hurt. If she belonged to a lower walk of life, she’d be on the— Well, our Fillmore precinct can show you dozens, walking the streets of an evening looking for trouble. ‘Juicy peaches,’ as Pirie calls them, just waiting to be plucked. Accident is about all that protects the Fannys. Few men are in the seducing business when it comes to their own class.”
“Dan!” cried Julia, aghast. “You must be in a frightful temper to say such things to me about my own niece.”
“She’s practically my niece. And I am in a frightful temper. Never expect to be in a worse. Little good even this ruse has done me. Your mother’s eyes could see through a stone wall.”
Women find few of man’s moods so attractive, before matrimony, as his anger. It rouses their inherited instinct to placate, to submit. Julia went to the terrace door and looked up and down. Her mother was sitting in an arbor with Mrs. Macmanus and Pirie. She was also leaning back in her chair, resigned, if not interested.
Julia went up to Tay and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t—please!—be angry with me,” she whispered. “If you knew what a tumult I’ve been in—finding you here—wanting to see you more than anything on earth—but not knowing what to do!”
Tay melted instantly, and took her in his arms and kissed her. “It’s all simple enough. I’ll take the next American steamer if you insist upon it, but that doesn’t come for eight days yet. Meanwhile I must see you. I don’t like the tropics. They get on my nerves. Nothing doing, and the air shot with a curious lazy electricity. And I’m by no means satisfied with myself. I should be in California this minute. Love plays the devil with a man!”
“But you would stay a month if I wanted you to!” said Julia, triumphantly.
“Six months, let everything go hang!” he said savagely. “You’ve got me, all right. But to waste my time—even for eight—nine days longer! That’s a horse of another color. Am I to see you every day or not?”
“Oh, yes! Yes!” murmured Julia. “I have given up the struggle. The way you got in—it was too funny! I saw at once that I might as well give up first as last. You will always have your way. Besides, I want to. I’ll meet you every day, three times a day. I couldn’t help myself if I would.”
“Thank heaven. And don’t try being too strong again. It’s not the strong women that men die for, Julia.”
He lifted his head with the uneasy sense of being watched. “Damn it!” he thought. “Is that old witch—” But he could see nothing.
“Julia,” he said, lowering his voice, “I shall not come to this house again. Meet me to-night—no, to-morrow morning—early—at nine o’clock—over in that jungle.”
“I will! I will! Only promise never to be angry with me again.”
“That will depend entirely upon yourself. If you go back on your word —”
“As if I would! We’ll have long wonderful days together— Oh, dear, they are coming.”
She broke away from him and smoothed her hair.
“It’s not so late,” said Tay, hurriedly, “only six. Couldn’t you come for a spin in my motor boat? I’ll walk back, and wait for you at the bend of the road.”
“I’ll try. If I don’t, it will be because I can’t get away from mother. But I’ll be in the jungle to-morrow at nine.”
The guests entered with Mrs. Winstone.
“Southern California isn’t in it, Dan,” said his sister, mischievously. “Such orange and lime groves. You must come again. Still, I could hardly tear myself away from this room —”
A door opened and Fanny burst in. She looked on the verge of hysterics. “Oh, what do you think?” she cried. “What do you think? Granny says I can go to the party on Thursday night, and that I may go to Bath House every day and see you, Mrs. Morison! She likes you so much. The skies must be going to fall. You have bewitched her.”
“You are talking nonsense,” said Mrs. Winstone.
“Ask Granny. She was almost sweet. But who cares what’s come over her? You will teach me to dance, won’t you, Mr. Tay? I could learn in five minutes.”
“Charmed. Congratulate you—and ourselves. Is the carriage ready?”
“Oh, it is! I’ll go out with our guests. Don’t you bother, Julia. Aunt Maria, you must be tired out. Oh, what a funny, funny day! I’ll never sleep again.”
“Really, I do feel as if we had all gone mad,” said Mrs. Winstone, when the good-bys had been said, and she and Julia were alone. “Jane must be quite off her head. There’s a cruiser comin’ in to-morrow. Fanny’ll be engaged to-morrow night. Perhaps, after all, Jane jumped at the chance of gettin’ rid of her.”
“Oh, I was sure she would relent. And she could see to-day what company means to a young girl.”
She ran away to her room to change her frock, for she had no intention of incurring Tay’s wrath again. But as she was about to open her door she saw Denny coming down the corridor waving two cablegrams.
“Oh, dear!” she thought. “Is this a summons? Well, thank heaven I can’t get away for a fortnight yet.”
She took the cablegrams, half resolved, as she closed her door, not to open them until her return. But of course she did nothing of the sort, and read them promptly.
The first was from Ishbel:—
“All serene. Stay as long as you like.”
The second was from the duke:—
“Harold died this morning.”
“And he knows,” thought Julia, with instant conviction. “That is what brought him here.”
VII
Forced to the wall, Julia’s mind always became cool and practical. Tay inspired her with a new fear. If he had come to Nevis to await her husband’s death, he intended to marry her and take her away with him. It was one more proof that he possessed that form of genius which makes certain men the quick partner of circumstance and insures their mastery of life. In his own phraseology, he never missed a trick. No doubt he would take out a special license to-morrow.
But she had no intention of being rushed into marriage. The most formidable barrier had been razed; her desertion of the women might bring reprobation on herself, but not ridicule on the cause; nevertheless, confronted with the necessity of an immediate decision, she realized acutely that four years of devotion to a great impersonal ideal had inspired her with a love for it of which she had barely been conscious at the time. The idea of deserting this cause she had made her own, or, at the most, giving it a divided homage in a distant land, renewed that love with such a jealous intensity that for the moment she hated Tay as the chief exponent of that ruthless male force which had bred the revolt of Woman. His dash to Nevis was a declaration of war, but a war which should bring defeat to her not to him. She buckled on her own armor at the thought. It was possible that he would win, but not without her full connivance. Nor should she see him again until she had made up her mind with no assistance of his.
She had instantly abandoned the intention to meet him at present, and sat down to compose a note to send him on the morrow. Many sheets went into the waste-paper basket before this note was written to her satisfaction. It was impossible to refer openly to her husband’s death, nor, for the matter of that, was it necessary. Angry as she was, she never for a moment forgot that his instant sympathy, his instinctive comprehension of her, was the deepest of their bonds. A word would be sufficient. He would understand, and wait.
“You must give me three or four days, possibly a week, to think it all out,” she wrote finally. “You think and strike like lightning, but my mind is made on another plan. For me, all great crises must be approached with deliberation, if only because nature made me the most impulsive of women. I have learned to weigh, having a profound distrust for those instincts upon which women pride themselves. But you always understand. I could not love you if you did not. When I write next, my mind will have been made up once for all.”
But unfortunately Tay was not in a position to understand. He had received no second cablegram from Dark, for Dark knew nothing of France’s death. The duke, by no means anxious to remind the world that another member of the house of France had gone insane, made no announcement in the London newspapers, and it was not until several days later that Ishbel heard the news from Bridgit.
“That’s over, thank heaven!” said Mrs. Maundrell. “And I’m going to take the bull by the horns and send Nigel to Nevis when he returns next week. Happily, Mr. Tay is safe in California. What is the matter?”
“I was thinking how wonderful it would be if Nigel and Julia really should marry, after all,” said Ishbel, without a blush. “But I must run, dear. I’ve a dinner to-night.” And she hastened to the cable office and sent a message to Tay; and another to Julia, warning her of the threatened invasion.
But this was not until three days later, and meanwhile Tay received Julia’s note. Nor was Denny the messenger.
The old servant had orders to take it to the hotel at seven o’clock in the morning, and, if Tay had gone out (and even visitors rise early in the tropics) to go to the jungle at nine. As Denny never hurried himself, it was after seven when he started on his errand. Fanny was mounting her horse for her daily ride over the estate when he passed her. She saw the note, held respectfully in his hand, swooped down upon it, and tucked it in her belt.
“You have too much to do to go on errands,” she said severely. “I will give this note to Mr. Tay. Where shall I find him?”
Denny repeated his instructions, adding dubiously, “But you never go off the estate alone, Missy.”
“I shall this morning, and see that you do not mention it. If you do, you shall have no tobacco for a week.”
Fanny attended to her duties mechanically until a few minutes before nine, then turned her horse in the direction of the jungle. She felt no curiosity in regard to the contents of the note, but knew that it must have been written to break an appointment. She hummed an old African tune and felt that she held the apple of life in her hand. No scruples disturbed her. Julia was thirty-four, quite old enough, as she had frankly observed, to be her mother, certainly old enough to have done with love, far too old to interfere with the preeminent rights of youth. Nor had she the faintest misgivings as to her power to take any man from any woman. Was she not eighteen? Was she not a beauty? Did not every man’s eye fight a torch as it met hers? The arrogance of girlhood was never more consummately realized than in Fanny Edis on that glorious tropic morning as she rode to appropriate her aunt’s lover; and although her intelligence was too undeveloped to reason, she subtly felt that nature was always the ally of such fresh healthy young vehicles for the race as she. Nor was she as innocent as Julia had been at her age. No governess had ever been able to keep at her heels, and she had seen much of life among the blacks.
She saw Tay walking restlessly up and down before a grove of banana trees, and waved to him gayly, taking no notice of his apprehensive frown.
“Here is a letter from Julia,” she said as she rode up. “I suspect she can’t come. Granny told her last night that she wanted the whole history of that Suffrage movement this morning.”
Tay barely heard her. He read with a sensation of amazement the brief too carefully written message, which informed him that he was to waste a week more of his precious time on this island. He had no key to the riddle, and was astonished at this manifestation of caprice in a woman who had always seemed to him to possess just enough of that charming feminine quality; none of the stupid excess which made so many women unreasonable. Moreover, she had deliberately broken her word. Anger succeeded amazement, and if there had been a steamer leaving Nevis, he would have taken it and flung the consequences in her face. But here he was a captive for quite another week. He had no intention of betraying his chagrin to this sharp-eyed girl, however, and he merely put the note in his pocket and thanked her for bringing it.
But the eyes he met were not sharp. They were fixed on him in a large appeal.
“Mr. Tay,” Fanny said, with charming hesitation, “I know that Julia wouldn’t meet you this morning, and from something she said last night I know that she does not intend to leave the estate for several days. She made Aunt Maria promise to take me to the party at Bath House on Thursday. She said she was too tired, but I am sure she is avoiding you. It is too horrid of her, when you have come all this distance. But I don’t fancy any one can unmake Aunt Julia’s mind. So—so—I have a plan to propose.”
She blushed and looked handsomer than ever, and as she was a born horsewoman, this was very handsome indeed. Her lids drooped, and she drew a long breath, almost of ecstasy. “Oh, Mr. Tay!” she whispered imploringly. “Make believe that I am Aunt Julia—young again—while you are here! Then I should have an imitation love affair, at least, and it would be something always to remember. Will you?”
Tay stared at her; but balked, angry, helpless, his temper lashed with the memory of cablegrams he had received that morning both from his irate father and the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, he felt more than inclined to accept this young coquette’s proposal, not only to punish Julia, but to pass the time. Moreover, Julia had thrown her at his head. He never doubted that she had given Fanny the note; and he wondered at the fatuity of woman. Still, he hesitated.
Fanny pouted.
“You are afraid I will fall in love with you,” she said audaciously.
“More likely it would be the other way,” he replied with automatic gallantry.
“Well—why not?”
“My dear Miss Edis, there is no more harrowing experience than being in love with two women at once.”
“As if such a thing could be!”
“Common enough outside of books.”
“Well— You might love me on Nevis and keep Julia for London. That is where she belongs.”
Again Tay stared at her. She had the heady magnetism of youth. She was a part of the gorgeous tropic scene. He reflected that if he had met Fanny first, and on Nevis, he certainly should have flirted with her. He did not take girls very seriously, having been trained by the cool flirtatious young heads of his own race. That Fanny was in love with him never entered his mind. Little did he guess the pickle he was mixing for himself when he finally raised that brown little hand to his lips.
“By all means let us have our comedy,” he said. “I am game if you are.”
Fanny gave a nervous laugh that might have warned him if anger and disappointment had not made him reckless. She slid from her horse and tied it to a tree.
“Now take me out in your motor-boat,” she said with a charming air of authority. “That will be a real adventure.”
VIII
Julia, grateful for any distraction after another sleepless night, went to her mother’s room to relate the history of Woman’s Suffrage from its incipiency in the United States of America down to the present moment, when the English women, having been driven to adopt the methods of men, were confident of victory for the first time.
Mrs. Edis, who rose late in these days, was propped up in bed, wearing the expression of one who is about to enter a hospital and have the operation performed which may give her a new lease of life.
“If I must hear this tiresome story, I must,” she said. “Tell it me in as few words as possible, but leave out no detail which will make me understand it fully. I read your horoscope again last night. Your destiny is too plainly writ to admit of any doubt. And it was made three times. I am an old woman to sever my mind from the ideals of a lifetime, but those frivolous people opened my eyes yesterday. Moreover, you can never be Duchess Kingsborough. You are not likely to have another opportunity to marry, for no child of mine would disgrace herself in the divorce courts.” Her sharp eyes never left Julia’s face. “Nor could you obtain a divorce in England. Ring the bell. I wish another cup of tea. Then you may convert me.”
Julia had made up her mind not to tell her family of France’s death until she had reached her final decision, and felt reasonably certain that Mrs. Winstone would not hear of it at Bath House. Tay would understand her desire for secrecy, nor would he be eager to admit that he had come to Nevis to await the man’s death. Even Mrs. Morison, she felt sure, had not been taken into his confidence. That lively little lady had prattled a good deal yesterday, while Julia was showing her the gardens, and it was evident that she had leaped to the natural conclusion that her brother was determined to persuade Julia to have her marriage annulled in the United States without further delay.
Mrs. Edis having fortified herself with a cup of strong tea, Julia spent the next three hours telling her story. When she had finished, her mother did not speak for a few moments, then nodded her head emphatically.
“I see! I see!” she said. “I shall never approve of those unladylike demonstrations, but I admit that results have justified them. Your destiny is clear to me now. You have only begun. I, in my limited knowledge, read that you were to be the greatest lady in England. Substitute the greatest woman in England and all is clear.”
“It might be in America,” said Julia, hesitatingly, but not turning her eyes away. “They—they—have talked more than once of sending me there.”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Edis reached for her stick that she might thump the floor. “America! A nation of savages —”
“Good heavens, mother! America—the United States—is one of the great countries of the earth, a world power. Must I give you its history, too?”
“God forbid. It does not exist as far as I am concerned. Great Britain is practically the earth. No other country is worthy of your horoscope. And you must not stay here too long. Don’t fancy that men will hasten to give you power. Not they! Men! How I should like to see them humbled to the dust before I go. No, your time here must be short, and I want you to promise to give it all to me.”
“Oh, I came to see you.”
“I shall claim you. Who is this Mr. Tay? Is he really in love with Maria?” There was the ghost of a smile on her grim mouth, and her bright little eyes explored the serene depths before her.
“Oh, Aunt Maria always has an infant-in-waiting. I doubt if she is ever serious.”
“But who is he? Of course he has no family, as he is an American, but is he respectable? Has he any fortune?”
“He is quite respectable, and I believe he is well off. His sister, Mrs. Bode, is an old friend of Aunt Maria’s. She is received everywhere in London.”
“Ah? So! Maria had better marry him. But I’ll not have him, nor any of those people, here again. I have never needed society, and now!” Her harsh dry face lit up. “My old science is restored to me. It will companion me for the rest of my days. You need never fear that I am lonely. A great science is all things to the mind that loves it. You will visit me as often as you can. I need nothing further. When Fanny marries—and I now hope she will find a husband at Bath House; I long to be rid of her sulky discontented face—my lawyer will engage a suitable overseer. Now go and send that lazy black-and-tan mustee to come and dress me.”
Fanny came in late for lunch. She looked flushed and triumphant, and her manner was subtly insulting. But nobody noticed her, nor that she left the house as soon as the meal finished. Mrs. Edis talked of the new central factory to be built on St. Kitts, and the significance of the projected Government House for Nevis. Mrs. Winstone yawned, and Julia was absorbed in her own thoughts. She longed to be alone, but she had barely reached the shelter of her room when Denny knocked and handed her a letter. She closed the door in his face, and her hand shook. But the address was not in Tay’s handwriting, and she opened the letter with a sensation of bitter ennui. It proved to be a circular communication from the ladies of St. Kitts, begging her to speak to them at her convenience on the subject of the Militant movement in England. It was couched in formal terms, but enthusiasm exuded, and the word great, personally applied, occurred no less than four times.
“Great!” thought Julia. “We that the world calls great know just how great we are. Every man his own valet!”
Her impulse was to refuse, but on second thought she concluded to accept the invitation, and for the morrow. Here was her opportunity to discover if the great cause had taken irrevocable possession of her. She had recited its history mechanically to her mother, but that, no doubt, was owing to her mental and physical fatigue. She would sleep to-night, and to-morrow, if she could feel the old thrill when talking to a rapt audience, play upon them, sway them, rise to the heights of magnetic eloquence which had made her famous, convert the cynical, then, surely, her old enthusiasm would return. If not —
Denny had told her that the messenger awaited an answer. She went to the living-room and read the letter to her mother.
“If you don’t mind my leaving you for one day —”
Mrs. Edis interrupted her. There was a slight flush on her face. “By all means, accept,” she said. “And I, too, will go. It will be my only opportunity to hear you, to witness one of your triumphs. Have you all those newspaper articles about yourself that I have heard of?”
“I am afraid not. I kept a scrap-book for a year, but we soon get over that.”
“Can you obtain them?”
“Oh, yes, it would be possible.”
“I wish them, and everything else that is written about you from this time forth.”
“Very well, you shall have them.”
“Write your acceptance. To-morrow I shall go to St. Kitts for the first time in sixteen years. And for the first time in forty years I shall see that island bend the knee to an Edis.”
IX
The next evening Julia sat in her room divided between consternation and secret joy. The women of St. Kitts had given her a reception such as had never been offered to another woman in the history of the island. A military band had played a welcome as her boat approached the jetty, a committee of representative women had met her, and all Basse Terre, black as well as white, had turned out to escort her to the house of Mrs. Ridgley, the first lady of St. Kitts, where a select few had been invited to greet her at luncheon. The meeting itself had taken place in the ball-room of Government House, and been attended by every man and woman that could obtain entrance, irrespective of sympathies. All were eager to be instructed, but far more eager to see and hear the famous Julia France, to be able to talk about it for the rest of their lives.
Julia had talked to them for two hours. She instructed them to the full, and she related many of her personal experiences in and out of Holloway gaol. Never had she spoken more brilliantly, been more amusing and witty, and never before had she spoken with an unremitting sense of effort. Her speech had come from the head alone. It had felt like a wound-up mechanical toy. The personal passion with which she had infused her speeches and won her great following never stirred. It had retreated to her depths, and taken her magnetism with it. She entertained her audience and she converted no one. She concentrated her mind with a determination almost vicious, but more than once it slipped its anchor, and she failed utterly to reduce the brains below her into one relaxing helpless whole for the planting of her suggestions.
She alone, however, realized her failure. St. Kitts was delighted with the entertainment, to say nothing of the profound satisfaction of listening to the woman who had been introduced to the world in this very ball-room, and then gone forth to make their islands famous: St. Kitts and Nevis had more than once been pictured in the weekly press of England while Julia’s comet was playing about the heavens. As for Mrs. Edis she swelled with pride and treated the ladies of St. Kitts, who showed her almost as much honor as they did her daughter, with a haughty urbanity that made them feel humble and insignificant.
When the lecture was over, there was an informal reception, during which Julia had never been more gracious and talkative, while wishing them all at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Then the wife of the Administrator had invited them into the dining-room for an elaborate tea; and it was six o’clock before release was sounded, and Julia found herself in the boat once more, listening to the congratulations and the rapt prophecies of her mother.
At dinner Fanny had stared with open mouth at her grandmother’s almost excited account of the day’s events, but she had finally turned to Julia with a laugh.
“Really, my famous aunt,” she said, “there can be no doubt as to what you were born for. It must be quite wonderful to have a career. Shan’t you change your mind and speak at Bath House?”
“No,” said Mrs. Edis, sharply. “Julia will devote the rest of her visit to me. It is quite enough to have two members of the family gadding at Bath House.”
“Upon my word,” said Mrs. Winstone, languidly, “I didn’t come to Nevis to chaperon a young girl. Chaperonin’s not my line. I think Julia had better take Fanny to the party to-morrow night.”
“Oh, no, Aunt Maria! Julia—Julia needs a good long rest.”
Fanny stared apprehensively at her young aunt, but was immediately reassured.
“I shall not go to Bath House at present. And you, Aunt Maria, you have your two old cronies, and bridge. Mrs. Morison will look out for Fanny —”
“All very well, but—ah—I shouldn’t advise you to stay away too long. Mr.—ah—the Morisons are getting impatient—say they’ll leave by the next steamer, if you don’t give them the benefit of your society. That, it appears, is what they came for.”
Julia saw Fanny frown at Mrs. Winstone, but could only interpret her aunt’s words as a warning that Tay was showing signs of impatience; by no means unwelcome news. She answered lightly: —
“I didn’t ask them to come. They must take the consequences.”
Mrs. Winstone shrugged her shoulders. “I take very little interest in other people’s affairs, as you know. And advice was always thrown away on you.”
Mrs. Edis’s dry sarcastic tones interposed before Fanny could speak. And Fanny’s breath was short, and her chair might have been sown with tacks.
“Really, Maria, you must grudge every moment spent away from Bath House and that young fool of yours. I wonder you can still talk of coming to your old home to rest.”
“Quite so!” Mrs. Winstone, recalled, fluttered her eyelashes, and glanced into an old concave mirror. “He grows more devoted every minute. One couldn’t imagine he had ever had a thought for another woman.”
“Good for you, Aunt Maria,” cried Julia, gayly, and escaped to her room.
Here she promptly forgot the conversation and sat down to face her own problem once more. Was her love for the great impersonal cause, which had commanded all the forces of her nature, extinct? Or was her appalling coldness but the natural result of her present state of mind—and the agitating nearness of the man? Surely, if she broke with him definitely, returned to England, submerged herself in work, became a part once more of the crowding incidents, triumphs, disappointments, problems, of a cause that could never write finis, all her old passionate interest would return.
But if they no longer needed her? She had inferred from Ishbel’s cablegram that the Government was about to surrender. But it was hard to believe that Mr. Asquith, in any circumstances, would become a convert to a revolution he abhorred and sincerely disbelieved in; and as for Lloyd-George, the cleverest man in England, it was far more likely that he was playing for a long respite, hoping to relegate the women quietly out of the public eye, to take the fight and courage out of them by degrees, while pretending sympathy, promising his personal assistance, advising them to abstain from demonstrations which forbade the Government to capitulate in a manner inconsistent with its dignity. Of course he would succeed for a brief interval only, for if he was clever and subtle, the women were as clever—and alert; but—well—on the other hand, did she care? From Nevis England looked like an old page of written history, shut up between calfskin. Moreover, the cause was bound to sweep on to victory with its own momentum—why should she —
Her subtle brain, unleashed, marched straight ahead, and in step with her desires. How were women to improve the world, if they progressed to that point of superiority and self-completion, of unity in the ego, where they could no longer marry and produce a worthy race to complete their work? Even to-day many a high-minded woman went through life unwedded rather than degrade herself in marriage with a man whom she was forced to admit her inferior in all but the common attraction of sex. But she had no such excuse. And if her power to devote herself to this cause, impersonally and wholly, had vanished, with her interest in it, now that her mind was recentred; if she must, did she return to England, resent her sacrifice, possibly with hatred, of what use her lip service? If the experience of to-day were prophetic, she could give to the work but a hypocritical shell, while her aching soul was on the other side of the globe. On the other hand, with Tay, even in an alien land, there was no question that she might be of service for the rest of her life.
And what of the immorality of loving a man irrevocably and not living with him? Morality was still of higher account than politics. And children? The inadequacy of Fanny, who almost repelled her, had renewed her intense longing for children of her own. And if she so desired these children, the children of one man out of all the millions of men on earth, did not this mean that they were clamoring for their right to live? What right hers to deny them, that being, after all, the first reason for which she had received life herself?
But at this point she went to bed.
“What is the use?” she thought. “I’m going to marry him, and that is the end of it. I’ll not give the matter another thought from this time forth.”
And for the first time since her arrival on Nevis she slept soundly.
X
She awoke at dawn, and rose at once, remembering that she had not had a walk since leaving the ship. No wonder these three long days of bodily inactivity and mental turmoil had played havoc with her nerves. She would walk for hours and then return and write to Tay, telling him that she would marry him on the day the next American steamer arrived, but begging him to make no attempt to see her until then. It was her duty to devote the few intervening days to her mother, as well as to prepare her by degrees for the staggering information that she intended to marry an American and desert her country. But if she could convince the old lady that the planets had reckoned with the United States of America, she should, if not reconcile her to a son-in-law of a race she despised, at least leave her with unbroken faith in a science full of compensations.
She went out to the kitchen and brewed herself a cup of coffee, then started for a brisk walk round the island. The night’s refreshing sleep, the strong drink, the awakening tropic morning, the peace of mind that follows a momentous and final decision, made her feel as if dancing on ether, almost as happy as if Tay were beside her. The sea was as blue as liquid sapphire, save near the shore, where it was as green as the beryl stone. The cloud that descends the slopes of Nevis at nightfall had rolled itself upward and floated lightly above the cone. In the distance were the outlines of other islands; and everywhere the royal palms with their long bladelike leaves rattling in the rising trade-wind that gives lightness to Nevis air on the hottest day, the bright green cane fields, the heavy dark groves of banana trees, the lime and shaddock orchards. Even the ruins of the deserted old estates, splendid masses of masonry in their day, a day of coaches, and knee-breeches, and gay brocades, had a new and more pictorial lease of life, for brilliant foliage burst from every crevice.
The negroes began to sing in the cane fields, women in bright cotton frocks, with brighter handkerchiefs about their heads, came from their huts along the shore and cooked in the open, boats danced on the water. She walked halfway round the island and was hungry once more. A little black boy, tempted by a bit of silver, “skinned” up the slim shaft of a tree and threw down a young cocoanut. She refreshed herself with its “wine” and then started along the stretch of road that passed Bath House, half hoping to meet Tay. In a moment she heard the sound of galloping hoofs, eight at least, and averse from meeting any one else, hid behind a clump of low palms.
The horses stopped abruptly, then struck the road more lightly as if their riders had dismounted. She parted the palm leaves and looked out. A man and a maid appeared round a bend of the road, each leading a horse. The girl took the man’s arm with a little gesture of confidence and looked up into his face, speaking rapidly. The man looked down at her, smiling, admiring, indulgent. The girl’s face was flaming with nothing short of adoration. They were Fanny Edis and Daniel Tay.
Julia, feeling as if she had received a blow in the pit of the stomach, sank limply to the ground and stared out over the dazzling sea. Monserrat quivered in its haze, and she wondered if it were in the throes of an earthquake. It usually was. She remembered that Mont Pelée, after untold years of “death,” had suddenly blown the lake from her summit and suffocated thirty-five thousand people in four minutes. Would that Nevis would awake, pour out her boiling lava, and extinguish her wretched mortals. Julia beat her brow with one of those instinctive gestures too natural for the modern stage; for perfect naturalism borders upon farce.
Tay—Fanny. She took it in finally. He had fallen in love with Fanny, the young, beautiful, glowing girl—What was it old Pirie had called her—“volcanic product”? No doubt she was far more beautiful and fascinating than any girl Tay had ever met,—and quite different from American girls. Julia recalled many of them; they had always seemed to her rather light; clever and charming, but scantily sexed. No wonder Tay had succumbed to this gorgeous tropic flower. Fanny might be selfish, soulless, brutal, but what man ever looked behind a beauty like that? She was the siren born, and men have gone down before sirens since the daughters of Eve came to rule the earth and laugh to scorn the god in man.
Julia felt quite sixty. No doubt Tay had realized that she was all of thirty-four the moment he had seen her beside Fanny. Men were always fools about the mere youth in woman. Hadn’t she noticed that years ago, before she had spent a week in London? No wonder Nature made women brutal and wholly selfish during its brief possession. Tay had loved her, oh, no doubt of that, but with his mind, with that greater half of his being which he had shown her that day in the Bavarian wood; but men are primal always and spiritual incidentally, when they are men at all; and her hold had been a flimsy silken string that had snapped the moment he met this radiant mate, unspoiled, untouched, awaiting him on a tropical island. He had loved her, but he was madly in love with Fanny, and that, after all, was the great passion mortals lived to experience, if only because the poets had taught them to expect it. And she—she must despise where she had almost worshipped. How did women survive the death of illusions? Material death was something to pray for.
But Julia’s brain, stunned for the first time in its active life, soon recovered its energies. She suddenly realized that she did not feel sixty, no, not by any means. She felt very young and very angry. A moment more and she sprang to her feet with a cry of fury. She fancied she heard her flame-colored locks crackle. Her slim fine hands worked. They looked like steel instruments of torture one may see among old relics of the Inquisition. What right had this raw silly girl to take her man from her? Tay was hers and she should have him. She should hold him to his word, marry him, make him forget this passing infatuation. He would not be long discovering that she had far more to give him than any callow girl. If not! Once more her fingers opened and shut. Well for Fanny that she was once more on her horse with a strong arm beside her. Julia’s fingers were ready for the slender stem upholding that triumphant arrogant head. Fanny! Why, Fanny was a fool. She would make Tay the most miserable of men, understand not the least of his ambitions, leave him, no doubt, for another the moment her passion had cooled. He had insinuated that she was a born wanton, although he appeared to have forgotten this virtuous impression.
Her next impulse was to run after Fanny, denounce her as a thief, a pirate, force her to see the dishonor of her conduct. But this impulse soon passed, for never would she, Julia France, make a fool of herself, no, not if they laughed in her face. But what, in heaven’s name, should she do?
She peered out. The road was clear. She darted across it, and up into a cane field. The negroes were far away by the mill. She threw herself down in the dense green silence and wept a torrent. After all, what could she do? She could only recognize that she had lost Tay, the one man in the world for her; she, who had made herself so much more than mere woman, and to a girl who was her inferior in everything but beauty.
She wept stormily for her lost lover, for love, for herself. Then, once more, she despised him. Why should she regret a man who had proved himself weak and contemptible? Why indeed? Ask womankind. She did. The more convinced she grew that she had lost him, the more she wanted him. She abhorred him, she loathed him, she had never despised any mortal so utterly, and she loved him several thousand times more than ever.
She sat up and dried her eyes viciously. Why was she making a fright of herself? She had always laughed at women that cried and spoiled their eyes. He was not yet married to Fanny. Why should she not pretend to release him, then subtly reënter the lists and win him again? How could any girl survive in a close contest with a woman still young and beautiful, and with experience and knowledge of men? But she stirred uneasily. She had seen the automatic triumphs of girls more than once. Nature was always on their side.
She fell back on the ground with a sensation of despair. “Oh, what shall I do?” she thought in terror. “Have I come to this? How shall I live?”
But she sat up again in a few moments and deliberately composed herself, ordering her powerful will to rise and perform its office. She must return to the house before her mother sent servants in search of her, and her eyes must not be red. Nor her hair look as if she had tried to tear it out by the roots. She took down the braids, smoothed them with her hands, pinned them up, and pushed the short locks under her hat.
Her mother. She had risen to her feet, but stood staring out over the waving cane. Why had she given Fanny this sudden liberty, and not three hours after announcing her decision, with all the force of her obstinate old will, that Fanny should never marry, never be permitted even to meet, a young man? And why had she insisted that Julia remain at her side throughout her entire visit? Never was there a less sentimental woman. And the conversation at the dinner-table last night? It sprang vividly from her memory. She saw Fanny’s face, flushed, arrogant, anxious, her aunt’s faint satiric smile, heard her covert words of warning.
What a blind fool she had been.
“So,” she thought grimly. “We are all the victims of a plot, and one quite worthy of my mother. I have been managed as easily as if I had but a teaspoonful of brains in my head. And so has he. Idiots! Idiots!” And she hated everybody on earth.
She walked rapidly home, slipped into the house unobserved, bathed her eyes, until the outer signs of the most tempestuous hour of her life were obliterated, powdered the black rings under her eyes, and made a satisfactory appearance at the lunch table. Neither Mrs. Winstone nor Fanny was present. Mrs. Edis talked of naught but Suffrage.
“Great heaven!” thought Julia. “That I should live to hate the word!”