1 "If Aliette hadn't given up the game to do war-work, and if I hadn't got cut over by that bomb, we might have done some good together in the club doubles," said Mollie Fullerford.
"Well, you're both of you too hot for me," protested Wilberforce.
He balanced a cup of tea on his white-flanneled leg, and surveyed his companion admiringly. They were sitting in the sloped veranda of the clubhouse at Queen's. Below them, on the oval of green turf between the red West Kensington houses, a dozen marked courts hummed with the ping of ball against racket-face, with the swish of running skirts and the voices of the players scoring--"love fifteen," "fifteen all," "fifteen thirty."
"Oh, well played!" ejaculated the girl. Aliette, practising with Mrs. Needham on No. 2 court, had just banged a forehand drive down the side-line. "She's getting it back. Don't you think so, Jimmy?"
Mollie spoke the last word with some hesitation; they had only just got to the point of calling each other by their Christian names.
"Rather," agreed her companion, whose interest in Brunton's wife was of the vaguest, but who knew that he must at least simulate it--because, to Mollie, Aliette represented a good deal more than the average sister.
James Wilberforce did not possess a very emotional personality. He was not at all the sort of person to be swept off his feet by any woman. Marriage being "indicated," alike by parental desires, personal tastes, and a growing income, he had cast about for a possible mate; found her by accident; and was now "making the running" in the approved manner.
So far, the "running" had been rapid enough. Nevertheless, Sir Peter Wilberforce's son and heir already understood that this calm young creature of the broad forehead and the violet eyes would not yield herself without a struggle. "Takes life rather seriously, does Mollie," he thought; and liked her none the less for that.
"Does Mr. Cavendish play?" she asked casually. "If so, you ought to bring him one afternoon."
"He used to. But since he took to golf, 'patters' has lost its attraction."
"Rotten game, golf," said Mollie. "Takes too long. I believe in getting one's exercise over quickly."
They discussed the point for a second or two; and then veered, like most people in their position, to the personal. Aliette, looking up at them as she changed courts, knew a quick flash of envy. For those two, love would run its legitimate course; whereas for her---- She put thought away, and concentrated on the game.
"Two five, I lead," announced Mrs. Needham--a hard-featured, soft-hearted woman with a mop of unruly black hair, an eye like a hawk, and the hands of a mechanic. "Why don't you give up that overhand service?"
"It'll come back in time."
Aliette went to her own base-line, and took two balls from the boy. Mrs. Needham crouched in her favorite position on the other side of the net. Aliette tossed up a ball, swung up her racket, served.
The service, railroading down the center-chalk, defeated Mrs. Needham. The server crossed to the left-hand court; stood to serve--and saw Ronnie.
For a fraction of a second they looked at each other through the high side-netting. He plucked off his soft hat, and stood watching. Aliette served; faulted; faulted again.
"Fifteen all," announced Mrs. Needham.
And suddenly, Aliette's game came back to her. Once more her first service struck chalk from the center-line. But this time Mrs. Needham got back a swingeing shot. Aliette ran--back-handed--flew to the net, killed the return.
"Thirty fifteen," she announced.
She knew, as she crossed, that Ronnie was still watching; that she must not look at him; that if she looked at him she would double-fault again; that she mustn't double-fault; that she must win.
But now Mrs. Needham was all out for the set. Aliette's service came back like white lightning down the side-line. She struck--ran for the net--guessed Mrs. Needham's lob-stroke--got back to it--slammed it across the court--got to the net again--won her point after a tremendous rally.
"Forty fifteen," announced Aliette; and abruptly, preparing to serve, she knew that Ronnie was no longer watching. Concentration failed her: the game didn't seem to matter: the sooner she lost the game, the sooner she would be able to talk with him.
2
"Why, there is Mr. Cavendish," said Mollie Fullerford. "And that's Hugh Spillcroft with him. I haven't seen Hugh for years."
She ran down the steps; and Wilberforce followed--a little jealously. The four stood chatting.
"Yes," said Ronnie. "Spillcroft had insisted on his playing 'patters.' Spillcroft had promised to lend him a racket."
"Cavendish used to play a pretty fair game at the House," interjected Hugh--a clean-shaven monocled young man, who looked, once divested of wig and gown, a bit of a blood.
To Ronald the ensuing conversation was almost meaningless. He took part in it automatically. He didn't want to talk with these people; he wanted to watch that white embodiment of graceful strength, Aliette. He could hear her voice, "Forty thirty," followed by the swish of two balls along netting, and Mrs. Needham's "Deuce." She had lost two points since he turned away.
The unexpected sight of her had paralyzed his self-control. He forgot all the resolutions, all the ratiocinations of the last ten days. He clean forgot Hector Brunton. His inward vision reveled in memories of her beauty. How glorious she looked--on horseback, a-walking, in evening dress, even on a tennis-court. Curious, that last! "Patters" women nearly always looked disheveled--those of them who could play.
Aliette--her set thrown away--and Mrs. Needham joined the four of them.
"How do you do, Mr. Cavendish?"
"How do you do, Mrs. Brunton?"
They clasped hands.
"I had to go all out that last game," said Mrs. Needham.
Neither she nor Ronnie realized that Aliette had lost deliberately. Aliette seemed so calm, so radiantly self-possessed. The vivid coils of her hair shone smooth in the sunlight; her eyes, as they looked into Ronnie's, were unruffled pools of dignity.
Yet inwardly Hector's wife shook like a ship in storm. The tempest of feeling--released, as it were, by the touch of his fingers--swept her through and through. To stand there, talking rubbish, undiluted "tennis" rubbish, became sheer torment. Her heart ached for his to recognize it.
"Oh, but I'm a fool all right," said the new voice in her heart; the voice she had been trying to stifle ever since March. "I've lost my head for good this time. I wish I could run away from him. I wish he'd go and change. What's the use of meeting him? Like this--with all these people. Why aren't we ever alone? I wish he'd go."
But Ronald Cavendish could not tear himself away. He, too, stood there, "like a perfect idiot," as he phrased it to his mind, saying anything that came into his head; anything that would keep him for another minute, and yet another minute, within the charmed circle of her society.
"Mixed doubles seem distinctly indicated," broke in Spillcroft's voice. "Come along, Cavendish, you and I had better change."
"But I shall be absolutely rotten," protested Ronnie, as he allowed himself to be led off.
Mrs. Needham found another opponent, leaving the two sisters alone with Wilberforce, who offered Aliette some tea. She accepted, and accompanied them back to their table; where, after a few minutes, Cavendish and Spillcroft joined them.
Sipping her tea, listening with half an ear to the conversations all round her, Aliette Brunton was, for the first time, aware of social danger. She felt a furious desire to talk with Ronnie, to look at him. But to-day no frailest rose-bubble of enchantment isolated them from their kind. To-day all the other instincts warned that she must avert her eyes, avert her voice. Nobody--not even Mollie--must guess their secret. Somehow she no longer doubted it their secret. Her very fears gave her the certainty of him. She stole a look, sideways under long lashes, into his blue eyes; and knew--knew that he loved her.
Yes, he loved her. Not as Hector imagined love, solely in the possessive. But in all ways; with passion, with tenderness with as much regard for her as for himself.
Fleetingly, she marveled that this thing should have happened to her; to both of them. How had it happened? Why? What did the why or the how of the thing matter? Sufficed--for the ecstatic moment--the knowledge that they loved one another.
But the man did not know. Certain of himself, he held no certainty of her. Even his self-certainty seemed evanescent in her presence. Surely he had not dared to let himself adore this radiant, perfect creature! Surely, even daring to adore, he would never dare tell her of his adoration! She was like the goddesses, utterly removed from the touch of a man, utterly aloof from him. Then, fleetingly, he knew her no goddess, but a wife--Hector Brunton's wife. And all the scruples of his code made the knowledge bitter in his mouth.
"Cavendish hasn't got a word to say for himself," thought Mollie. "Jimmy's ever so much better-looking--though Jimmy's tennis is rotten. I sha'n't let Jimmy play in this set." And she insisted, following the high-handed method of the modern young, on playing with Spillcroft against Cavendish and her sister.
Ronnie's patters proved somewhat less out of practice than he had imagined.
"Thank you, partner," smiled Aliette, after the last stroke of the third, and decisive, set. "Your volleying saved, the day."
"Oh, I didn't have much to do with it," he smiled back.
Since the beginning of the match, except for the necessities of the strokes, they had hardly spoken to one another. But, for each, the forty minutes of partnership, the mutual will to win, the clean struggle on clean grass, the open air and the exercise had been one long delight.
Scruples, uncertainties, consciousness of danger, consciousness of fear--these and all the inevitable soul-searchings of a love such as theirs took wings and departed from them. Surrendering their bodies and their minds to one another for the winning of a game; concentrating on the vagaries of a white ball, a net, and a few square feet of turf; they forgot their immediate selves, forgot that they were "Mr. Cavendish" and "Mrs. Brunton"--two poor human beings poised at the edge of emotional disaster, separated by law, by the church, by "honor," united only by the "sentimental impulse," and became, for the forgetful moment, one mind and one body.
But now, once more, they were twain. Now forgetfulness was over. Now emotion poured back full-tide, submerging both their minds and their bodies.
James Wilberforce lounged down from the clubhouse; drew Mollie away from her partner, and began whispering. Mollie called across the court:
"I say, Alie, Mr. Wilberforce wants to drive me back in his car. You won't mind coming home by yourself, will you? I don't think I ought to play any more."
"No, dear, I sha'n't mind," called back Aliette; and her eyes as she watched the two figures making towards the waiting cars; as she heard the chug of Wilberforce's engine, and saw his two-seater swing through the gates up the road toward Baron's Court, betrayed the truth of the remark. But when she turned once more to the flanneled man at her side, those eyes had regained their composure.
"Can't we find a fourth?" remarked Aliette.
"We'll get Mrs. Needham to make up," said Spillcroft. "She and I'll take you two on."
And so, for one last crowded hour, those two played together--brains and bodies attuned to the delight of working in unison.
The very cleanness of the game took all sense of guilt and all guilt of sense from them. They might have been boy and girl, young husband and younger wife, lovers whose love was sanctioned of the law--he and she, sinews taut, eyes keen, all the health and all the youth of them concentrated on rhythmic pastime.
3
"You'e got your car, I suppose?"
"No. My--my husband's taken it out of town."
The rhythmic pastime was over. Nervously now they faced one another on the empty court. Spillcroft had rushed away to change, Mrs. Needham to the tube. From their kind, they could expect neither help nor hindrance.
Already the shadows of the red houses lengthened toward them across green turf; already the bustle of the tennis-ground was hushed. Sparrow twittered on the silence. In the radiance of that summer evening the brown hair, the brown eyes of Aliette kindled to wallflower color against the rose-flushed cream of her skin. The sight of her beauty, so virginal in its white simplicity of attire, so alone with him in that emptiness of green, struck Ronnie speechless. He stood enthralled--the magic of her harping sheer music against the hush in his brain.
"I--I think I ought to be going home," said Aliette.
She, too, heard that sheer music which is love. Once more, tempest-wise, emotion swept her through and through: sweeping away inhibition; sweeping away all false fastidiousness; cleansing her soul of all instincts save the instinct for loving, for being loved. In that one magical, self-revealing moment, she was conscious solely of joy.
"I--mayn't I drive you----" stammered Ronnie. He hardly knew what he said. All the suppressed vehemences, all the pent-up longings of the past months craved utterance at his lips. Fear and love keyed him to any daring. He had had such happiness of her that afternoon. It made him fearful lest happiness should utterly escape.
"Thank you very much----" Once more she was aware of danger. Yet she could not bring herself to say him "No."
He left her without another word. Her own heart, the very world, seemed to have ceased pulsing as she awaited his return. She stood alone, woman eternal, hearing very faintly across hushed spaces the beat of music, the birth-cry of children.
Ten minutes later--looking, to other eyes, the most ordinary, most orderly of citizens--Ronnie came back. But that sense of utter solitude was still on Aliette. She could only smile her thanks as he led her to the waiting taxi, handed her in, and closed the door.
She did not wish that he should speak with her. She was afraid lest even his voice should irrupt upon this exquisite solitude wherein her soul hung poised. And yet how good to know him beside her as London spun past them in the twilight.
Was this London, the London she had so hated, this wonder-town through which they sped together? Was this Aliette? This, Ronnie?
And suddenly, vividly, she desired to hear his voice. Solitude no longer sufficed her. She had been so long solitary--solitary in unhappiness. Now, in her new happiness, she craved companionship, the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. Why did he not dare speak with her?
Descending as from great heights, her soul knew him afraid lest, speaking, he should destroy that rose-bubble of enchantment in which they had their being; afraid, too, because he still thought of her as another's. Yet she was no other's: she was his, his only. And he--hers.
How fast they sped through this miracle of London. Already, the trees of its park were fleeting by.
Oh, why wouldn't Ronnie speak with her? Had he no word to say? In a moment, in such a little moment, it would be too late.
Yet it was fine of him not to speak, fine that he should so steel himself against her. His eyes were like sharp steel; his lips one tense line above the determination of his chin. He had clenched his hand--his right hand. Aliette could see it--close--so close to her own hand.
Then the car swerved, almost throwing them together; and Ronnie's self-control snapped, as a violin-string snaps, to the touch of her.
Their hands met. She knew that he was raising her hand to his lips; she felt the brush of his lips warm against her fingers; she heard his lips whisper: "Aliette--Aliette--don't hate me for loving you."
4
Hector Brunton's wife entered her husband's house like a girl in a dream.