A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) 📖

CHAPTER XXXII

IT is said that a pretty woman is never out of patience

when she has a glass to gaze at, and Betty Steel, casting critical yet complacent glances into the depths of a

Venetian mirror, awaited the descent of her very particular friend, Madge Ellison, with the sweet content of a

lily waiting for the moon. Mrs. Betty’s face was a Diana’s

face, but her body was of the color of a blush-rose in her

summer-rose dress. The figure had charm enough as it

idled to and fro in the spacious, mellow-tinted room.

Mirror and window showed her patronage; the one, symbolical of self alone; the other of that same self’s outlook

upon life at large. Betty was in one of her most radiant

moods. A letter had come for her from her husband by

the morning post; his eyes were much better, and there

was no cloud upon the horizon.

 

Parker Steel’s wife heard the frou-frou of a silk petticoat sweeping down the stairs, the sudden opening of the

study door, a man’s footstep crossing the hall.

“What, out to tea again in your best frock?”

The rustling of silk ceased for a moment at the foot of

the stairs. Betty Steel smiled like a wise and intelligent

elder sister. Madge Ellison, and their most stylish locumtenens, Dr. Little, had reached that degree of familiarity

that permits two people to spar amiably with each other.

 

“A grievance, as usual! I suppose you grudge us the

carriage?”

 

“Nothing half so selfish, I assure you.”

 

“Why not come and pay calls with us?”

 

“The old proverb, Miss Ellison.”

 

“A little goes a long way, is that it?”

 

“Am I so little?”

 

“What’s in a name!” and she passed on with a significant side glance and an arch lifting of the chin.

 

Dr. Little, a black-chinned, tailor-waisted, superfine

person, with a distinct “air,” proceeded on a hypothetical

expedition up the stairs. He had remembered leaving

his latchkey in his bedroom, a useful excuse for meeting

a pretty woman on the way, as though the coincidence

were supremely natural.

 

“Au revoir.”

 

Miss Ellison favored him with an undeniable wink as

she picked up a pink parasol from the hall table. She

was one of those women who remind one forcibly of the

stage-beauty as seen on very young men’s mantel-pieces.

Madge Ellison would show as much of an open-work

stocking as was compatible with social refinement. A

retroussS nose and a round and rather cheeky chin associated themselves naturally with her methods of fascination.

 

“Madge!”

 

“Yes, dear.”

 

“Here, quick, I want you!”

 

“Bless my soul, why this tragic note?”

 

“Look, the window; do you recognize any one by the

church-railings?”

 

There was a hard abruptness in Betty Steel’s voice.

 

She was leaning forward with her hand on the windowsill, her face curiously changed in its expression from the

purring contentment of two minutes ago.

 

“I see a solitary female, dear.”

 

“Don’t you recognize her?”

 

Miss Ellison gave a quaint and expressive little whistle.

 

“No, surely, it can’t be!”

 

“Kate Murchison.”

 

“By George, dear, it is!”

 

The two friends watched the figure in black disappear

under the old gate-house that stood at the northwest corner of the square. For Madge Ellison there was nothing

more inspiriting than curiosity in the event. To Betty

Steel that passing glimpse had opened up all the hatred

of the past.

 

“What’s in your mind, Madge?”

 

Miss Ellison was buttoning her gloves.

 

“I’ll bet a tea-cake to a penny bun, dear, that it is the

Murchisons who have taken their house in Lombard

Street again.”

 

“Nonsense!”

 

Betty Steel’s eyes grew hard and dangerous at the suggestion.

 

“Why nonsense?”

 

“The Murchisons would hardly have the impudence

to sneak back to Roxton. People don’t care to be bungled

into the next world by a drunkard.”

 

“My word, Betty, draw it mild. I never heard that

the man drank.”

 

“You were in Italy, then, I believe.”

 

“Nasty, nasty! You are peevish over the poor people’s

failings!”

 

“I hate that woman, Madge.”

 

Miss Ellison laughed at the sincerity of her friend’s

spite.

 

“Why, what earthly harm can that woman do you by

choosing to live in Roxton?”

 

“I tell you, Madge, there are some people in this world

who set one’s teeth on edge. After all, what need for all

this waste of antipathy. Kate Murchison must be staying with the Carmagees. I’ll risk that as my explanation.”

 

Spirited away on a round of social duties, Betty Steel

and her friend paid their third call that afternoon at the

Canonry in Canon’s Court, off Cloister Street. A row of

carriages under the avenue of limes, and a liveried servant standing on duty under the Georgian portico, reminded Betty Steel that the third Friday in the month

was the date printed on Mrs. Stensly’s cards. Betty

and her gossip were announced in the crowded drawingroom, where a number of bored figures were balancing

teacups and talking with forced animation. A few men,

severely saddened by their responsibilities, were treading

on each other’s heels, and looking anxiously for ladies

who would take pity on sandwiches or cake. The French

windows of the room were open to the May sunshine

of the garden, and the fringes of a cedar could be seen

sweeping the sleek grass.

 

Individual faces disassociate themselves slowly from

such an assemblage, and Betty Steel, blockaded under the

lee of a grand-piano, had but half the room under the ken

of her keen eyes. Madge Ellison had been left to chat

with Mr. Keightly, a very popular and enthusiastic curate

who had rendered his character doubly fascinating by

professing to hold prejudices in favor of celibacy. Betty

had a brewer’s wife at her elbow. They had exchanged

ecstatic confidences on the exquisite shape and color of

Mrs. Stensly’s tea - service, and were both groping for

some further topic to keep the conversation moving.

 

“And how is the play going, Mrs. Steel?”

 

“The play?”

 

Mrs. Betty seemed unusually pensive and distraught.

 

“Lady Sophia’s play.”

 

“As well as a piece can go with amateurs. We all

find fault with our neighbors.”

 

“I hear it is a splendid little play.”

 

“Not at all bad.”

 

“I must say I like the pathetic style of play.”

 

“Oh yes, quite charming.”

 

“I saw Julia Neilson play in that play, oh what was

the play called?—”

 

“‘A Woman of no Ideal,’ most likely,” thought Mrs.

Betty. “I wonder how many more times she is going to

tread on that one unfortunate word.”

 

She waited demurely for the title to recur, but it appeared lost in the limbo of the fat lady’s mind. The

brewer’s wife continued to grope for it like a conscientious

housewife who has lost the Sabbath threepenny bit in her

glove-box while dressing for church.

 

Betty Steel, however, had become utterly oblivious of

her presence for the moment. She was gazing towards

one of the open windows where a woman’s figure, tall and

comely in simple black, showed against the rich green of

the grass. The woman’s back was turned towards the

room, but Betty knew her by her figure and the lustre of

her hair.

 

“Very odd, Mrs. Steel, I can’t remember the name of

that play.”

 

“Really, I beg your pardon, I was thinking of other

things.”

 

A slight rearranging of this aggregate of Roxton culture

released Betty Steel from this amiable mass of irresponsible bathos. She contrived to wedge herself beside

Madge Ellison, whose retrousse nose had failed to tempt

the celibate to expand.

 

“You see?”

 

A smart hat was tilted significantly towards the window.

 

“I do.”

 

“Any news?”

 

“You have lost, dear. The tea-cake is on top. The

sensation of Roxton. They are here to stay.”

 

Mrs. Betty’s face expressed infinite pity.

 

“How eccentric!”

 

“Kate Murchison has had money left her.”

 

“And the husband?”

 

“I hear his plate is up in Lombard Street.”

 

Whether it was a mere matter of coincidence or the

working of a definite purpose, the fact was curiously selfevident to Betty Steel that the drawing - room of the

Canonry had divided itself into two camps. Windowward sat Miss Carmagee, dressed in black, her large

face shining like a buckler against the embattled foe.

Porteus the irascible Porteus who blasphemed all teaparties was chattering like a little brown baboon. Several of Kate Murchison ‘s old friends appeared to have

congregated together on the opposition benches. Mrs.

Betty remarked all this, and her mouth grew a mere line

in her pale and alert face.

 

The breweress had risen to depart. A number of

nervous people who had