THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Page 16

  It was, in fine, a successful evening, and therefore it was the more surprising when Mrs Kenworthy awoke next morning with a headache. A really thunderous headache—and as she was not as a rule given to headaches, possessing the constitution of a horse, Mrs Kenworthy sat up in bed, considerably alarmed, and reached for her hand-glass. Certainly she did not look ill, she discovered—though the sight, above her crumpled pink satin pyjamas, of her round, red face and untidy hair, that refused to keep the ‘golden glint’ the hairdresser had assured her would remain after his patent henna application, always irritated or depressed her, upon greeting it in the morning. Why, she wondered morosely, rolling out of her elaborately gilt and painted Italian bed and padding to the dressing-table to collect some aspirin, should that stupid little thing, Grace Smith, possess a slim figure and perfect skin, and hair that curled as naturally as a lamb’s in spring, when she, Rachel Kenworthy, needed them so much more?

  Grumpily she took the aspirin and crawled back to bed, giving orders that she was not to be disturbed—an order, incidentally, that rejoiced the household to an extent that she would have found distinctly unflattering—and refusing the tea that an agitated maid brought her, tried to sleep. But sleep would not come. Instead, her headache grew definitely worse. Her head throbbed and burned, as if a hot bandage were tied round the base of the skull, and this band prickled and ached and burned, refusing to be quietened by any means whatever. Dazed, utterly unused to pain, in desperation she took more aspirin, then tried Faivre cachets, then a nerve-sedative, and when all failed and the pain in her head grew steadily worse instead of better, sent a message instructing her secretary to go up to London to see her doctor . . . Sir Sydney Pawling of Harley Street, the physician of the moment, of course.

  Miss Smith’s heart rejoiced with a graceless fervour at the order, and she positively sang as she put on her hat; a cheap blue felt as nondescript as her suit, yet its frumpishness merely served to render more pronounced her youthful prettiness, as Mr Felstead subsequently informed her, as they sat together over lunch in the friendly shelter of the ‘Florence’. Miss Smith blushed and laughed, but reverted again to the subject of her employer.

  ‘You know, she really did look too awful, Mr Felstead. . . .’

  ‘My first name’s Tom,’ said Mr Felstead firmly, ‘and I propose you use it—you don’t need to tell me yours. Dreadful, does she look, eh? Couldn’t look worse than she looks as a habit, anyway!’

  ‘Don’t be unkind,’ murmured Miss Smith, turning the tiny box of capsules—hot from the plump and perspiring hands of Sir Sydney Pawling himself—that were warranted to relive her employer of her mysteriously born neuralgia. ‘She truly did look as if she was in terrible pain.’

  ‘Serve her right,’ said young Mr Felstead ruthlessly. ‘And God bless the headache, since it gave you a little extra off-time! And God knows you needed it. When can you get up again, do you think?’

  Miss Smith’s only reply was another blush, but it seemed eminently satisfactory. Her vis-à-vis escorted her to the station to catch her train, and it was noticeable that Miss Smith retained her blush for quite a long time after the 3.45 had pulled out of the station on its way to Bleck’s Haugh.

  But after all the new cachets proved unnecessary, for by the time Miss Smith presented them to her employer, the headache had departed as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun, and Mrs Kenworthy was in a thoroughly bad temper. She had sent her secretary ‘careering about London’, as she termed it, and wasting her time for nothing—Miss Smith’s dinner was as unpleasant as her lunch had been pleasant, and it was as well that she had the memory of the said lunch to sustain her through it. However, thought the girl as she went thankfully to bed at last, it was all in a day’s work. . . .

  The district was a gay one, and despite her personal unpopularity, Mrs Kenworthy had many invitations. Society, in these lean days, could not afford to ignore anybody so colossaly wealthy—but it was some time before the Lady of the Manor wore the rubies again. She had plenty of other jewels—as she was wont to aver before those women who had none in particular—and the ruby brooch reposed quietly in its sumptuous crimson leather case for several weeks before it was again requested to face the light. It was at a large dinner-party in the neighbourhood of Bleck’s Haugh that the owner of the Manor House sported again the ‘crimson-studded badge of theft’—as young Mr Felstead, rising to unwonted heights of poesy, had once described the brooch to Miss Smith—and it was the presence of the Viscountess and several even more highly titled ladies that induced the sporting of it. To meet these women of the aristocratic world she so longed to storm, to meet them and beat them on their own ground, was the desire nearest to the millionairess’s heart; therefore all the warpaint went on, and blazing like a chandelier she departed in the Rolls-Royce, with her depressed little husband at her side, and every hair on her ginger-coloured head waved until it fairly bristled with perfection . . . it was very late when she returned, and she was in no good temper when she did.

  Her harassed maid informed Grace Smith at nine o’clock next morning, as the latter was descending the stairs, notebook in hand, that ‘Madam’ was ‘in no end of a stew. Come home feelin’ like death, she said . . . some sort of pain come on after dinner, and she had to leave . . . tearing mad she was!’ It was with considerable trepidation that Miss Smith entered her employer’s bedroom—for Mrs Kenworthy never arose till midday—and stared, amazed, for the Kenworthy’s fat little hands were swathed in bandages. Seeing the wonder in the girl’s eyes, the woman in the bed snapped at her like an exasperated cat.

  ‘Don’t stand staring like a damned fool! Say something, can’t you?’

  Miss Smith bit her lip.

  ‘I—don’t know what to say,’ she murmured. ‘It’s all so sudden . . . I only just heard from Minnie that you were ill at all.’

  ‘I should say I am ill!’ said Mrs Kenworthy furiously.

  She thrust out a plump leg clad in a pink satin trouser from beneath the bedclothes, and lo, the foot attached to the leg was swathed in bandages likewise! A most odd sensation seized Miss Smith as she looked; a curious chill as of unaccountable fear seemed to brush her like a passing wind, linger and be gone, as Mrs Kenworthy went on, her voice high and aggrieved.

  ‘Rheumatism it must be, I s’pose . . . though why on earth I can’t make out. Never had a twinge in me life, as far as I can remember, though Kenworthy’s a martyr to it?’ she checked herself hastily, remembering that only common women alluded to their husbands by their surnames. But in moments of stress Hoxton was apt to take command of the lady in more senses than one. She waved a bundled hand towards the window, and continued.

  ‘Must have sat in some draught, or maybe the beds in that damn’ hotel we stayed in in Scotland was damp. That’s it! Must be. But why it should stick only in me hands and feet—like steel darts going through ’em, it is. . . .’

  She discontentedly surveyed her plump little person, and again it seemed to Grace Smith that that little wind of fear circled and sighed about her, making her voice sound oddly breathless as she replied.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Kenworthy. Shall I get Sir Sydney on the telephone for you?’

  Sir Sydney, on the ’phone, was mellifluous and comforting. No! He did not think it at all necessary to come down to see Mrs Kenworthy. A little rubbing with such and such an ointment would doubtless relieve the pain; if she could send her secretary up by the next train to town he would see that she got exactly the right thing . . . so many people, these damp days, were suffering in precisely the same way! Good morning!

  So another half-hour saw Miss Smith travelling jubilantly to lunch with her young man once more—for although they would not have phrased the relationship quite so crudely, such, indeed, was now young Mr Felstead’s established position. Yet beneath and beyond all her jubilation lay a curious substratum of quite another feeling . . . and after lunch was over and the coffee-stage was reached, Miss Smith, albeit shyly and hesitatingly
, began to try and explain this feeling to the young man sitting opposite to her. But it was not easy to begin.

  ‘You won’t laugh at me if I tell you a funny idea of mine?’ she began tentatively.

  Young Mr Felstead pressed her slim, ringless hand despite the watching waiter, and shook his smoothly brushed head.

  ‘Not on your life!’ he assured her. ‘Nothing you could say would make me laugh, especially when you ask me not to . . .’ but although he did not actually laugh, he raised a pair of most incredulous eyebrows when Miss Smith unfolded her idea. She faltered, bit her lip and stopped, and with a quick glance round at the inquisitive waiter—but he was six tables away this time—Mr Felstead put both hands over hers and held them quite openly and shamelessly.

  ‘Darling,’ he breathed. ‘Yes, I shall call you that if I want! Don’t feel hurt . . . but upon my soul, you know, you mustn’t let your imagination run away with you! Fancying things like that. . . .’

  ‘But,’ whispered Miss Smith obstinately. ‘It does seem funny, doesn’t it—somehow? First the pain round the head, just where It must have pressed and hurt so dreadfully . . . and now . . .’

  Mr Felstead stopped her by the quick and efficient device of laying a swift finger across her lips.

  ‘You sweet little soul!’ he declared fondly. ‘I simply won’t have you think about this sort of thing any more, do you hear? It’s simply coincidence, and coincidence can do all sorts of rummy things. Even make two people who never met till three months ago fall in love with each other. . . .’

  With the rest of the conversation we are not concerned. But it must be related with regret that although ultimately the rheumatic pains departed as mysteriously as they had arrived, from the limbs of Mrs Kenworthy, the ointment prescribed by Sir Sydney had nothing to do with their departure, although it was rubbed in by the patient hands of little Miss Smith until those hands were positively sore.

  Life settled down again and for several weeks all went well. The rubies reposed quietly in their safe, along with all the other lovely, sparkling stones, for which, it seemed sometimes to Grace Smith, Mrs Kenworthy had sold her soul—and most devoutly the little secretary hoped it might be long ere they were taken out again. Each night when she went to bed she said her prayers before the gleaming golden ikon—for it was true as Mrs Kenworthy had said, her little secretary was ‘churchy’ to the core—and the dark holes in the lovely thing yawned piteously wide and empty; how she wished that she had enough money to restore, if not the actual rubies, at least some other worthy stones, to those gaping wounds in the gold and ivory! She wondered sometimes, furtively watching her employer as she bustled through her days, serenely sure of herself, complacent, unimaginative, how she could forget so easily what she had done—robbed, as it were, the Lord of the World of the jewels that were rightly His? It was fortunate for her job that thought is silent—although to be sure, in her heart of hearts little Miss Smith knew, with a glow of content, that the retention of a job, any job now, was no longer of primary importance to her. In a few months’ time young Mr Felstead would be made a full partner . . . and then, then came the evening of the Hunt Ball, and the swift climax towards which all these events had been slowly moving.

  The Countess of Dair was to be there, and the height of Mrs Kenworthy’s ambition about to be realised. She would meet Lady Dair face to face, challenge her jewels ruby to ruby—and unless her judgement was hopelessly at fault, beat her finally and hopelessly. Force the Press, Society, the public to admit that her rubies were incomparably finer than the Dair collection, up to now the most wonderful collection in England! In a fever of anticipation she ordered a wonderful new gown, glowing ruby velvet to match the jewels, and a brand new cloak of ermine lined with crimson; had her hair freshly tinted, her nails enamelled scarlet, slept for three nights beforehand with her face enclosed in a mask of honey and crushed almonds, and altogether, in her excitement and anxiety, drove her entire household, including the long-suffering Grace, all but mad with nervous exasperation. It took the combined efforts of Minnie, Grace and Mr Kenworthy to complete the lady’s toilet on the great night, and as at last the door of the Rolls crashed to and the huge, unwieldy machine lumbered off down the drive into the dour November night, Miss Smith turned to Minnie, an unspoken question in her eyes. To her surprise the maid answered it.

  ‘I wonder too,’ she said grimly. ‘’S funny, miss—don’t think she’s tumbled to it yet. But between you and me, it is funny, ain’t it, how every time she wears those rubies something happens to her? Wonder what it’ll be this time? Unlucky I call em . . . dug out of a religious picture they was, wasn’t they? Serve her right!’

  Minnie went dourly upstairs, and collecting her things together from her desk, Miss Smith went thoughtfully upstairs to her bedroom. Her room was a mere attic, since Mrs Kenworthy did not see the sense of wasting good rooms on employees, but it overlooked the drive and the gardens, and many a peaceful evening had Grace Smith spent sitting writing on the window-sill, her pad upon her knee, flavouring, as it were, her letters with an occasional appreciative glance over the lovely scene spread so far below her.

  It was a cold November night. The sky was high and violet-blue, studded with steel-pointed stars, but far below the country lay swathed in a light ground-mist, so that when she looked down, it was as if she looked upon a swinging, drifting ocean of pale, silvery cloud, through which from time to time the dark mountain-top of a group of trees thrust upwards, only to be instantly obscured again by a fresh wave of mist, stealthily washing over it as the sea washes over and obscures a hump of rock. She took out a closely written letter headed ‘Bury Street’, and sat holding it closely in her hand, smiling a little from sheer happiness, before beginning her answer. Her heart was very full—at the moment too full to write, as she sat staring down at the sea of mist curling and rippling below her, and up to the smooth, dark blue of the serene sky above. Oh, she was lucky! The luckiest of girls, to be writing to say the final ‘yes’—the ‘yes’ that had lain so long unspoken between them, yet so sweetly known it would in the long run be spoken—how much luckier was she than this poor, sour little rich woman she served. How much luckier she was to be young, strong, happy, to have dreams and ideals and imagination, than to be like that; a creature mentally and spiritually pig-like, grown gross and brutal with the fatness of rich living and spending . . . vaguely she wondered how she was getting on, sighed and smiled, as she glanced at her new wrist-watch—a particularly smart specimen of Felstead & Garth’s newest and smartest little platinum articles on a narrow, woven strop. Ten o’clock! Dinner would be over, more or less—they had been invited to dine at the Penderels to meet Lady Dair, and to go on to the Ball afterwards—and the triumph, if it was to be won at all, well and truly won by this time. The jewels compared—Mrs Kenworthy would see to that—the superiority of her own acknowledged, and the crown of laurels securely placed upon the head of the victor . . . and for this, the poor, vulgar, soulless little brute had ruined a glorious thing that could never be replaced! Taken the jewels of that Holy Thing to deck her horrible fat body. . . .

  A sound came up from below, and Miss Smith, startled, craned forward to look down. Her room was above the front door, and although the mist still swung and shifted in a thick sheet below her, like a lilac tent stretched over garden and drive, lights showed dimly through it; a wide blotch, the lights of the hastily opened front door, and two blots, like eyes, the twin headlamps of the Rolls . . . and with the lights came voices, faint, but hurried.

  ‘Come on there—carefully! Don’t hurt her. . . .’

  Miss Smith sprang from her perch and rushed down the stairs like an arrow. There, just being carried into the hall, prone upon a stretcher, covered with her costly ermine cloak as with a shroud, Mrs Kenworthy lay before her . . . in a dream Grace Smith heard the twittering, agitated voice of the poor little husband at her side, as the chauffeur and the butler bore their silent burden towards the drawing-room.

  ‘R
heumatism again . . . must be! Just got dinner over . . . Lady Dair most kind, admiring rubies, far finer than hers . . . and suddenly, out of the blue, this! She just fell over, curled up shrieking in the most frightful pain. . . .’

  ‘I know!’ said Miss Smith sombrely. ‘With a pain in her side . . .’ she broke off, and silently followed the stretcher-bearers into the drawing-room.

  It was impossible for hands unused to ambulance work to carry the stretcher up the tortuously winding stairs of the old Manor House, so Mrs Kenworthy was tenderly laid upon the great couch in the drawing-room—that gracious room, so piteously over-furnished, whose windows overlooked the long stretch of lawn that swept away towards a bank of rhododendron, laurel, lauristinus, now looming dimly through the glimmering mist like the humped outline of a distant land seen through a sea-fog. In the flurry of the Kenworthy’s departure the butler had forgotten to draw the curtains, and the thick yellow satin folds were still drawn back, hanging straight each side of the wide french windows. Outside, the lilac mist moved like smoke, swinging and drifting and twirling in swathes of silver and blue, mauve and grey, shadowing everything in a curious, unreal glamour; the moon, shining dimly through the haze, showed the lawn gleaming wetly, thick with dew that glimmered like hoar frost, or like the surface of a strange sea that washed silently at their feet. Oddly unreal the whole thing seemed to be to Grace Smith; the suffering form upon the stretcher, the whispering of frightened servants, poor little Kenworthy almost weeping at her elbow, and outside, silence, the night, and the wreathing mist that pressed up against the windowpane as if peering inside the long, shadowed room . . . pulling herself together with a jerk, she spoke kindly to the trembling little man.