Sinister Street Compton Mackenzie (good novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

jealous,” Drake said with his look of wise rakishness. “And she didn’t seem particularly keen on helping out the conversation. So I supposed you’d had a quarrel. Funny girl, Lily,” Drake went on. “I suppose she’s all right when you know her. Why don’t you come in to my place?”

“Thanks,” said Michael.

He felt that fate had given him this opportunity. He had not sought it. He might be able to speak to Lily, and if he could, he would ask her to meet him, and promises could go to the devil. He determined that no more of summer’s treasure should be wasted.

He had a thrill in Drake’s dull drawing-room from the sense of nearness to Lily, and from the looking-glass room it was back to back with the more vital drawing-room next door.

Michael could hardly bear to look out of the window into the oblong gardens; two months away from Lily made almost unendurable the thought that in one tremulous instant he might be imparadised in the vision of her reality.

“Hullo! She’s there,” said Drake from the window. “With another chap.”

Michael with thudding heart and flaming cheeks stood close to Drake.

“Naughty girl!” said Drake. “She’s flirting.”

“I don’t think she was,” said Michael, but, even as he spoke, the knowledge that she was tore him to pieces.

XIX Parents

The brazen sun lighted savagely the barren streets, as Michael left Trelawny Road behind him. His hopeless footsteps rasped upon the pavement. His humiliation was complete. Not even was his personality strong enough to retain the love of a girl for six weeks. Yet he experienced a morbid sympathy with Lily, so unutterably beneath the rest of mankind was he already inclined to estimate himself. Stella opened wide her grey eyes when she greeted his pale disheartened return.

“Feeling ill?” she asked.

“I’m feeling a worthless brute,” said Michael, plunging into a dejected acquiescence in the worst that could be said about him.

“Tell me,” whispered Stella. “Ah, do.”

“I’ve found out that Lily is quite ready to flirt with anybody. With anybody!”

“What a beastly girl!” Stella flamed.

“Well, you can’t expect her to remain true to a creature like me,” said Michael, declaring his self-abasement.

“A creature like you?” cried Stella. “Why, Michael, how can you be so absurd? If you speak of yourself like that, I shall begin to think you are ‘a creature’ as you call yourself. Ah, no, but you’re not, Michael. It’s this Lily who is the creature. Oh, don’t I know her, the insipid puss! A silly little doll that lets everybody pull her about. I hate weak girls. How I despise them!”

“But you despise boys, Stella,” Michael reminded her. “And this chap she was flirting with was much older than me. Perhaps Lily is like you, and prefers older men.”

Michael had no heart left even to maintain his stand against Stella’s alarming opinions and prejudices so frankly expressed.

“Like me,” Stella cried, stamping her foot. “Like me! How dare you compare her with me? I’m not a doll. Do you think anyone has ever dared to kiss me?”

“I’m sorry,” said Michael. “But you talk so very daringly that I shouldn’t be surprised by anything you told me. At the same time I can’t help sympathizing with Lily. It must have been dull to be in love with a schoolboy⁠—an awkward lout of eighteen.”

“Michael! I will not hear you speak of yourself like that. I’m ashamed of you. How can you be so weak? Be proud. Oh, Michael, do be proud⁠—it’s the only thing on earth worth being.”

Stella stood dominant before him. Her grey eyes flashed; her proud, upcurving mouth was slightly curled: her chin was like the chin of a marble goddess, and yet with that brown hair lapping her wide shoulders, with those long legs, lean-flanked and supple, she was more like some heroic boy.

“Yes, you can be proud enough,” said Michael. “But you’ve got something to be proud of. What have I got?”

“You’ve got me,” said Stella fiercely.

“Why, yes, I suppose I have,” Michael softly agreed. “Let’s talk about your first appearance.”

“I was talking about it to mother when a man called Prescott came.”

“Prescott?” said Michael. “I seem to have heard mother speak about him. I wonder when it was. A long time ago, though.”

“Well, whoever he was,” said Stella, “he brought mother bad news.”

“How do you know?”

“Have you ever seen mother cry?”

“Yes, once,” said Michael. “It was when I was talking through my hat about the war.”

“I’ve never seen her cry,” said Stella pensively. “Until today.”

Michael forgot about his own distress in the thought of his mother, and he sat hushed all through the evening, while Stella played in the darkness. Mrs. Fane went up to her own room immediately she came in that night, and the next morning, which was Saturday, Michael listlessly took the paper out to read in the garden, while he waited for Stella to dress herself so that they could go out together and avoid the house over which seemed to impend calamity.

Opening the paper, Michael saw an obituary notice of the Earl of Saxby. He scanned the news, only half absorbing it:

“In another column will be found the details⁠—enteric⁠—adds another famous name to the lamentable toll of this war⁠—the late nobleman did not go into society much of late years⁠—formerly Captain in the Welsh Guards⁠—born 1860⁠—married Lady Emmeline MacDonald, daughter of the Earl of Skye, K.T.⁠—raised corps of Mounted Infantry (Saxby’s Horse)⁠—great traveller⁠—unfortunately no heir to the title which becomes extinct.”

Michael guessed the cause of his mother’s unhappiness of yesterday. He went upstairs and told Stella.

“I suppose mother was in love with him,” she said.

“I suppose she was,” Michael agreed. “I wish I hadn’t refused to say goodbye to him. It seems rather horrible now.”

Mrs. Fane had left word that she would not be home until after dinner, and Michael and Stella sat apprehensive and silent in the drawing-room. Sometimes they would toss backwards and forwards to each other reassuring words, while outside the livid evening of ochreous oppressive clouds and ashen