The Nutmeg Tree (19 page)

Her first warning, oddly enough, came from Anthelmine the cook. Since Sir William's arrival there had been no more games of patience, and Anthelmine evidently missed them, for every now and then she would come out of her kitchen, take a look under the pines, and stump gloomily back. Julia had pointed this out to Sir William, and made him laugh at the explanation; afterwards she wished she hadn't. For Anthelmine, it appeared, began to find something under the pines even more interesting than patience; whenever Sir William and Julia were there alone she came more frequently than ever. Sometimes, benevolently, she brought them out titbits—a plate of plums, or some newly baked
petits fours;
oftener she came simply to have a look. And Anthelmine's looks were in a class by themselves—so frank in their enquiry, and, as the days went by, so frank in their congratulation, that Julia did not know how to meet them. At last she made Sir William carry a couple of chairs to the second terrace in the vine; but even thither Anthelmine followed (with some fine radishes) and made matters worse by addressing Sir William in French.

“What did she say to you?” asked Julia nervously.

“‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,'” replied Sir William; “but this is a long way for her to climb.”

After that Julia saw she must be more careful; but it was already too late. Although, by exercising the sternest self-control, she had managed to conceal about three quarters of her sentiments, her adoration of Sir William was now so immense that the remaining fourth was enough to rouse Bryan's suspicion.

“What's the French for ‘love nest'?” he asked Susan.
“Nid d'amour?”

Susan, who happened to be doing a prose exercise at the moment, automatically put out her hand for the dictionary, and stopped halfway.

“I shouldn't think so,” she said seriously. “Slang's awfully hard to translate. Why do you want to know?”

“So that I can write it up on the gate; it's time this place was rechristened. Darling, you don't mean to tell me you haven't noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“Julia and Uncle William, of course. Our new romance.”

“Nonsense,” said Susan sharply.

“Not nonsense at all, darling. They're practically never out of each other's sight.”

Susan laid down her pen and frowned.

“Uncle William's simply being nice to her, as I asked him to, and of course Julia enjoys being taken about. I wish you wouldn't talk like that, because it's so silly.”

Bryan sat down on an open copy of Racine. The emotions he had aroused were quite incomprehensible to him; it struck him for the first time that Susan, like Queen Victoria, had a remarkable capacity for not being amused. Damn it, it was amusing—or at any rate highly interesting!—to see the distinguished and decorous Sir William fall so heavily for good old Julia.…

“She must be such a thorough change,” he mused aloud. “I wonder if she calls him Bill?”

“I loathe gossip,” said Susan suddenly. “You're just like the women at college who rush round saying ‘Did you see So-and-so having coffee with Someone Else?' It—it—”

“I know,” said Bryan. “It lowers the dignity of human nature.”

Susan looked at him with surprise.

“Yes. Then if you see that, why do you do it?”

“Perhaps because I haven't got a particularly high opinion of its dignity to start with. On the other hand, I think a great deal of it as an entertainment.”

“And that's all?”

“That's all,” agreed Bryan cheerfully.

The next moment, at the sight of Susan's face, he was on his knees beside her.

“Except you, my darling! You're the only thing that matters! You're everything to me, Susan—the whole world!”

But even as he said it, as he felt her hands tighten round his head, he couldn't help wondering whether that was the sort of thing Sir William said to Julia.

2

So far, at any rate, it was not. The new romance was proceeding along such highly unorthodox lines that Sir William, whenever he got Julia alone, spent most of his time laughing. Their luncheon at the Pernollet had put her completely at ease with him; she said whatever came into her head, introducing, without scruple, a horde of old acquaintances, and seasoning her discourse with bons mots culled admittedly from the Bodega. And Sir William was worthy of her confidence: the recurrent figure of Mr. Macdermot, for instance, seemed to arouse no unusual curiosity, and he never once enquired why it was that Julia, with her secure income, had been so patently living from hand to mouth. This last point struck Julia so forcibly, and impressed her so much, that she made a clean breast of the whole business.

“
They
don't know, of course,” she said anxiously, “and that's the worst part. How can I keep a cake-shop, when I haven't a bean?”

“You mean you haven't
anything?
” asked Sir William, to whom such a situation, in a person almost connected with him, was naturally startling.

“Not a cent,” said Julia thankfully—for it would have been dreadful to answer that question with Mr. Rickaby's money still in her bag. “I haven't even a return ticket, and how I'm to get back I don't know.”

“Don't worry about that,” said Sir William. He paused, and Julia held her breath, because if he wanted an opening there was a beauty. But Sir William was still preoccupied with her extraordinary revelations.

“I'd like to know how you got here,” he said, “if it won't make me an accessory after the fact.”

“Oh,
no!
” cried Julia. “It was easy. I just sold some valuable furniture”; and since the moment for sentiment had obviously passed, she made a very good story out of Mr. Lewis and the bailiffs.

They had more weighty conversations, as well; for now that Julia knew Sir William better she was constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to talk about Susan and Bryan. Such an opening, however, was surprisingly difficult to find; Sir William had apparently cast all care aside, and refused to be drawn into any serious discussion. All he wanted was to lounge about the garden and listen to Julia's reminiscences, or else drive her about in the car and laugh at her appreciations of the scenery. “But it
is
a nice view!” said Julia once, indignantly. “Of course it is,” agreed Sir William. “Then why do you laugh when I say so?” demanded Julia. “It's not what you say,” explained Sir William, “it's your face while you say it. You have a special landscape-expression, my dear; you look so pleased with yourself.…”

Julia finally decided to count as an opportunity the first moment she could get Sir William alone when he wasn't actually laughing out loud. This occurred one fine, very hot morning, when they were both a little lazy in the heat, and when Anthelmine's visit was safely over. She had brought them a handful of
dragées
, the white sugared almonds that announced a wedding in the village; so the opportunity was really a good one.

“These are for Jeanne-Marie,” said Julia. “Claudia's niece. She's getting married next week.”

Sir William grunted.

“William!”

“What is it, my dear?”

“I want to talk to you seriously. About Sue and Bryan.”

Sir William stretched himself in his deck-chair and looked at the sky. Julia understood his feelings; like any man happy and contented in the moment, he did not want to be bothered. Nor did she, for that matter; for no one else but Susan would she have disturbed, by so much as a thought, their delicious silent intimacy. But for Susan she had to do it.

“It's all my fault,” she said cunningly.

At once, as she had known he would—and what happiness the knowledge gave her!—Sir William roused up.

“Nonsense, my dear! You've got an absolute passion for taking blame on yourself. How could it possibly be your fault?”

“Because I ought to have been firm as soon as I got here,” said Julia seriously. “As soon as I
knew
—and while Susan was readier to hear what I said. I ought to have told her straight out that he was no good. I ought to have led him on and shown him up, even if it meant showing myself up too. But I left it, partly because I did so want her to think well of me, and partly because I knew she'd be so hurt. I haven't got a really hard heart.”

“That's true enough,” agreed Sir William.

“You see, I'm
sure
,” continued Julia earnestly. “It must seem odd to hear me say I understand a girl like Susan, but I do. She's very obstinate, and very proud. However badly Bryan turned out she'd never leave him or divorce him or—or do any of the other things. She'd just hang on, miserable, trying to keep up appearances. She'd take up welfare work, I expect, and eat her heart out.”

“I should imagine welfare work would be rather Susan's line,” said Sir William.

“Of course it is. She ought to be an M.P.—her grandmother thinks so too. But how can she put her heart into anything, when she's miserable at home?”

“Won't she be equally miserable if she's separated from Bryan now?”

“But only for a while,” said Julia eagerly. “She'll get over it. She's only twenty. I know if she doesn't marry Bryan she won't marry anyone else for a long time, but I believe that's a good thing. Susan wants someone older than herself, someone with a position, who'll appreciate her. I can't quite explain it, but she needs ideas more than people. She's got ideas about herself. If you ask me, I believe Bryan's the first young man who ever had the nerve to make love to her, and she feels if she doesn't stick to him she'll be letting herself down.… You haven't gone to sleep again, have you?”

“No,” said Sir William, “I'm considering. And I think you're right, my dear. Only what do you want me to do?”

“An awful lot,” admitted Julia. “In the first place, I want you to give Bryan a bad time. Talk to him about settlements, and how you're going to tie up Susan's money, and ask when he's going to do a bit of work, and how soon you can see his father. He hates that kind of thing. If he can put it off by not being officially engaged for another year, he will. And then, for Susan—I want you to have her in town with you, and give dinner parties, and make her meet a whole lot of nice men.”

Sir William considered this without enthusiasm.

“Susan's still at Cambridge,” he objected. “She won't desert her French to help me entertain.”

“But she gets a great long Christmas holiday,” retorted Julia. “I'm not worrying about her while she's at college. A month or two back in her own atmosphere will do her good—and besides, if you begin too soon she'll smell a rat. Christmas is just the time.”

“And I don't know any young men. I haven't for years.”

“I didn't say young, I said nice. I know as well as you that Susan won't care for dancing. The sort you want are the serious ones—interested in the slums, and all that. If they ask her to serve on committees, she'll have the time of her life.”

Sir William groaned.

“I've spent a lifetime on committees already—”

“There you are!”

“And I've had enough of them. I was going to write my last letter of resignation to-night.”

“What from?” asked Julia quickly.

“A new sort of club affair in the East End. All very self-governing and educational. I had a letter from the secretary last night, asking if I'd mind submitting a provisional constitution, together with estimates for expenses and a draft appeal for public support.”

“And you're not going to do it?”

“I'm going to send a cheque instead. From now on,
I
'm the public.”

Julia jumped up, her face radiant.

“We won't have to wait after all,” she said joyfully. “It's the very thing! Where's Susan?”

3

Susan was in the garden-room, filling her vases. For Sir William, who shared Julia's indifference to tangles, she had just completed a fine Dutch flower-piece of small early dahlias and red jasmine. She would have made a good florist, and knew it. Sometimes, in the abundance of her energy, she toyed with the idea of running a flower-shop as a sort of side-line to more important activities. She felt she could run any number of things—a career for Bryan, and one for herself, and probably her mother's cake-shop (if it ever materialized) into the bargain. At the moment, occupied by no more than French literature and a lover, she was feeling vaguely underexercised. It was therefore with extreme pleasure, as Julia had foreseen, that she listened to her guardian's proposal.

“But of course, Uncle William!” she cried. “I've done settlement work already, for school. I'd love to help, if you think I can be useful.”

“I'm sure you'll be very useful indeed,” said Sir William sincerely. Not one of that extremely well-meaning committee had Susan's energy—but then not one of them had Susan's youth. A pair of charitable dowagers, an M.P., an unpaid secretary, and—yes, that fierce, rather dishevelled young man who was the prime mover.
He
had energy enough—but no tact. If he and Susan ever got together, they would make, thought Sir William, a formidable team.…

“I ought to tell you,” he said, “that there's probably another scheme being got out, by a fellow called Bellamy. He'll probably tear everything you suggest to pieces. He always does.”

Susan opened her eyes.

“Bellamy! The Bellamy who wrote
Civics of the Slums?
”

“Very likely,” replied Sir William, with amazing indifference. “I know he's written something. If you'll come along, I'll give you all the stuff.”

Half an hour later Susan was seated in the billiard-room surrounded by a plan of the new premises, all the information so reluctantly acquired by Sir William, and a mass of pamphlets on club management. She was perfectly happy. As soon as Bryan came back from the lodge, she intended that he should share her joy.