she had arrived.
fanny brocklebank, as she passed the library, had thought it worth while to look in upon straker with the news.
straker could not help suspecting his hostess of an iniquitous desire to see how he would take it. or perhaps she may have meant, in her exquisite benevolence, to prepare him. balanced on the arm of the opposite chair, the humor of her candid eyes chastened by what he took to be a remorseful pity, she had the air of preparing him for something.
yes. she had arrived. she was upstairs, over his very head—resting.
straker screwed up his eyes. only by a prodigious effort could he see miss tarrant resting. he had always thought of her as an unwinking, untiring splendor, an imperishable fascination; he had shrunk from inquiring by what mortal process she renewed her formidable flame.
by a gesture of shoulders and of eyebrows fanny conveyed that, whatever he thought of philippa tarrant, she was more so than ever. she—she was simply stupendous. it was fanny's word. he would see. she would appear at teatime. if he was on the terrace by five he would see something worth seeing. it was now a quarter to. [pg 98]
he gathered that fanny had only looked in to tell him that he mustn't miss it.
not for worlds would he have missed it. but the clock had struck five, and straker was still lingering in the library over the correspondence that will pursue a rising barrister in his flight to the country. he wasn't in a hurry. he knew that miss tarrant would wait for her moment, and he waited too.
a smile of acclamation greeted his dilatory entrance on the terrace. he was assured that, though late, he was still in time. he knew it. she would not appear until the last guest had settled peaceably into his place, until the scene was clear for her stunning, her invincible effect. then, in some moment of pause, of expectancy——
odd that straker, who was so used to it, who knew so well how she would do it, should feel so fresh an interest in seeing her do it again. it was almost as if he trembled for her and waited, wondering whether, this time, she would fail of her effect, whether he would ever live to see her disconcerted.
disconcerting things had happened before now at the brocklebanks', things incongruous with the ancient peace, the dignity, the grand style of amberley. it was owing to the outrageous carelessness with which fanny brocklebank mixed her house parties. she delighted in daring combinations and startling contrasts. straker was not at all sure that he himself had not been chosen as an element in a daring combination. fanny could hardly have forgotten that, two years ago, he had been an adorer (not altogether prostrate) of miss tarrant, and he had given her no grounds for supposing that he had changed his attitude. in the absence of authentic information fanny could only suppose that he had been dished, regularly dished, first by [pg 99] young reggy lawson and then by mr. higginson. it was for mr. higginson that philippa was coming to amberley—this year; last year it had been for reggy lawson; the year before that it had been for him, straker. and fanny did not scruple to ask them all three to meet one another. that was her way. some day she would carry it too far. straker, making his dilatory entrance, became aware of the distance to which his hostess had carried it already. it had time to grow on him, from wonder to the extreme of certainty, in his passage down the terrace to the southwest corner. there, on the outskirts of the group, brilliantly and conspicuously disposed, in postures of intimate communion, were young laurence furnival and mrs. viveash. straker knew and fanny knew, nobody indeed knew better than fanny, that those two ought never to have been asked together. in strict propriety they ought not to have been at amberley at all. nobody but fanny would have dreamed of asking them, still less of combining them with old lady paignton, who was propriety itself. and there was miss probyn. why miss probyn? what on earth did dear fanny imagine that she could do with mary probyn—or for her, if it came to that? in straker's experience of fanny it generally did come to that—to her doing things for people. he was aware, most acutely aware at this moment, of what, two years ago, she would have done for him. he had an idea that even now, at this hour, she was giving him his chance with philippa. there would no doubt be competition; there always had been, always would be competition; but her charming eyes seemed to assure him that he should have his chance.
they called him to her side, where, with a movement of protection that was not lost on him, she had [pg 100] made a place for him apart. she begged him just to look at young reggy lawson, who sat in agony, sustaining a ponderous topic with miss probyn. he remembered reggy? her half-remorseful smile implied that he had good cause to remember him. he did. he was sorry for young reggy, and hoped that he found consolation in the thought that mr. higginson was no longer young.
he remarked that reggy was looking uncommonly fit. "so," he added irrelevantly, "is mrs. viveash. don't you think?"
fanny brocklebank looked at mrs. viveash. it was obvious that she was giving her her chance, and that mrs. viveash was making the very most of it. she was leaning forward now, with her face thrust out toward furnival; and on her face and on her mouth and in her eyes there burned visibly, flagrantly, the ungovernable, inextinguishable flame. as for the young man, while his eyes covered and caressed her, the tilt of his body, of his head, of his smile, and all his features expressed the insolence of possession. he was sure of her; he was sure of himself; he was sure of many things. he, at any rate, would never be disconcerted. whatever happened he was safe. but she—there were things that, if one thing happened, she would have to face; and as she sat there, wrapped in her flame, she seemed to face them, to fling herself on the front of danger. you could see she was ready to take any risks, to pay any price for the chance that fanny was giving her.
it really was too bad of fanny.
"why did you ask them?" straker had known fanny so long that he was privileged to inquire.
"because—they wanted to be asked."
fanny believed, and said that she believed, in giving [pg 101] people what they wanted. as for the consequences, there was no mortal lapse or aberration that could trouble her serenity or bring a blush to her enduring candor. if you came a cropper you might be sure that fanny's judgment of you would be pure from the superstition of morality. she herself had never swerved in affection or fidelity to will brocklebank. she took her excitements, lawful or otherwise, vicariously in the doomed and dedicated persons of her friends. brocklebank knew it. blond, spectacled, middle-aged, and ponderous, he regarded his wife's performances and other people's with a leniency as amazing as her own. he was hovering about old lady paignton in the background, where straker could see his benignant gaze resting on furnival and mrs. viveash.
"poor dears," said fanny, as if in extenuation of her tolerance, "they are enjoying themselves."
"so are you," said straker.
"i like to see other people happy. don't you?"
"yes. if i'm not responsible for their—happiness."
"who is responsible?" she challenged.
"i say, aren't you?"
"me responsible? have you seen her husband?"
"i have."
"well——" she left it to him.
"where is viveash?"
"at the moment he is in liverpool, or should be—on business."
"you didn't ask him?"
"ask him? is he the sort you can ask?"
"oh, come, he's not so bad."
"he's awful. he's impossible. he—he excuses everything."
"i don't see him excusing this, or your share in it. if he knew." [pg 102]
"if he knew what?"
"that you'd asked furny down."
"but he doesn't know. he needn't ever know."
"he needn't. but people like viveash have a perfect genius for the unnecessary. besides——"
he paused before the unutterable, and she faced him with her smile of innocent interrogation.
"well," he said, "it's so jolly risky. these things, you know, only end one way."
fanny's eyes said plainly that to their vision all sorts of ways were possible.
"if it were any other man but——" he stopped short at furnival's name.
fanny lowered her eyes almost as if she had been convicted of indiscretion.
"you see," she said, "any other man wouldn't do. he's the one and only man. there never was any other. that's the awful part of it for her."
"then why on earth did she marry the other fellow?"
"because furny couldn't marry her. and he wouldn't, either. that's not his way."
"i know it's not his way. and if viveash took steps, what then?"
"then perhaps—he'd have to."
"good lord——"
"oh, it isn't a deep-laid plan."
"i never said it was."
he didn't think it. marriages had been made at amberley, and divorces, too; not by any plan of fanny's, but by the risks she took. seeing the dangerous way she mixed things, he didn't, he couldn't suspect her of a plan, but he did suspect her of an unholy joy in the prospect of possible explosions. [pg 103]
"of course," she said, reverting to her vision, "of course he'd have to."
she looked at straker with eyes where mischief danced a fling. it was clear that in that moment she saw laurence furnival the profane, furnival the scorner of marriage, caught and tied: punished (she scented in ecstasy the delicate irony of it), so beautifully punished there where he had sinned.
straker began to have some idea of the amusement fanny got out of her house parties.
for a moment they had no more to say. all around them there was silence, born of mrs. viveash and her brooding, of young reggy's trouble with miss probyn, and of some queer triangular complication in the converse of brocklebank, lady paignton, and mr. higginson. in that moment and that pause straker thought again of miss tarrant. it was, he said to himself, the pause and the moment for her appearance. and (so right was he in his calculation) she appeared.
