The Annam Jewel (15 page)

It was at lunch-time that the day began to cloud a little. It clouded for Rose Ellen when Peter started talking about Sylvia Moreland.

“I do want you to meet her,” he said earnestly. “I've told her about you, of course; and I'm frightfully keen on your meeting. You don't really want to shop any more, do you? Because I thought that I could ring Sylvia up just to find out if she's going to be in, and we could go round there after we've had coffee.”

“I've got lots more to do, Peter,” said Rose Ellen.

“Not really? You can't have. You'll be stony-broke if you buy anything more. Look here. I'll telephone now and find out.”

Peter came back triumphant.

“We're to go right along,” he announced. “It's a bit of luck her being in—she has a frightful lot of engagements. I say, I'm most awfully glad you're going to meet her. You'll—you'll admire her frightfully.”

“Shall I?” said Rose Ellen. A little sparkle came into her brown eyes. “And do you think, Peter dear, that she'll admire
me
frightfully, too?”

“You're getting vain,” said Peter. “I shan't encourage you.”

“Oh, Peter, but I want encouraging—I want it dreadfully, Peter de—ah.” The sparkle died. Rose Ellen smiled her lovely smile.

Something warm and soft swept over Peter.

“You said ‘Petah',” he said; “you said it worse than ever. Say it again. Say ‘Petah de—ah'.”

“I won't,” said Rose Ellen. “I don't—I never do.”

“And you never did? Oh, Rose Ellen, what a frightful story! You used to be truthful—but, removed from my moral influence—”

“Petah de—ah!” said Rose Ellen.

The sunshine lasted until they reached Sylvia's flat, when the day became so overcast that even Peter could not fail to be aware of it.

Sylvia was exquisite in black—the thinnest, latest, smartest black. Rose Ellen immediately realized that her coat and skirt were just a shade out of date. Sylvia greeted her graciously.

“Peter hasn't said your name,” she said, “and it's so stupid of me, but I'm a little mixed—you don't call yourself Waring now, do you?”

“No,” said Rose Ellen. “I took Mrs. Mortimer's name when she adopted me.”

“Yes, of course. I suppose Peter told me, but changes of name are so difficult. Don't you find it rather confusing yourself? First your own name—I don't think Peter ever told me what it was—and then Waring, and then Mortimer, and—isn't she Mrs. Gaisford now? Shall you change again, or just stay as you are until you marry?”

The sparkle had returned to Rose Ellen's eyes. She met Sylvia's appraising glance, and said:

“I don't know, Lady Moreland. I haven't thought about it.”

Just for a moment they looked at each other. In that moment Sylvia thought:

“Peter never told me how pretty she was. I wonder if he knows.”

Rose Ellen's thought was sharper, thrusting deeper into the tender places of her heart:

“She hates me because she wants Peter. She's the sort that gets what she wants. She doesn't love him, but she wants him.”

Sylvia turned to Peter.

“Oh, I met the Merritts this morning,” she said. “They want you for their dance next week.”

“I don't think I can go,” said Peter.

“Oh yes, you can—with me. I told them you would, and they're counting on you.”

Her manner was coolly possessive. She ignored Peter's frown, and explained to Rose Ellen.

“He's really getting fearfully dissipated, and I take great credit to myself for his dancing.”

Then she began to talk to Peter about a play which they had seen together; a book she had lent him; a proposed expedition on the river with the Merritts. Every now and then she half turned to Rose Ellen with a casual, “I expect you're rather out of the way for theatres,” or, “It's so difficult to keep up one's reading in the country, don't you think?”

After about a quarter of an hour of this sort of thing Rose Ellen got up.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, “but my train won't wait for me, and I've left some of my shopping rather late.”

Peter got up too. He was looking cross, and had been replying to Sylvia's flow of conversation with monosyllables.

“Oh, you mustn't go yet,” said Sylvia. “Why, you must have quite a budget of country news to give Peter, and I'm sure he's dying to hear it—how the hens are laying, and all that sort of thing.” Sylvia's tone was lightly impertinent. She smiled charmingly as she spoke.

Rose Ellen's colour deepened. She looked at Sylvia with a gentle dignity which seemed to set a distance between them. Sylvia read the look easily enough. It said, “Use your weapons; they are not mine.”

Rose Ellen held out her hand.

“My news must keep,” she said; “or I can give it to Peter next time he comes to Merton Clevery. Good-bye, Lady Moreland.”

Peter followed her from the room. Neither of them spoke until they reached the street. Then Rose Ellen said:

“You needn't come to the station, Peter.”

“I needn't, but I'm going to,” said Peter gloomily. Then, after a pause: “I thought you'd have hit it off so well. Why on earth can't women get on together?”

“I don't know, Peter,” said Rose Ellen.

They walked on in silence. At the corner of the street Rose Ellen turned on Peter.

“I hate hens, I simply
hate
them!” she said with vehemence.

“So do I,” said Peter. “I should think everyone does.”

He looked at Rose Ellen and saw that her eyes were bright with tears. He gave her arm a little squeeze.

“I say, Rose Ellen, don't. I'm a cross beast. Don't let's quarrel. But I did think you'd like her, because—well, she's a great friend of mine, and I like you to like my friends.”

“She's most awfully pretty, Peter de—ah,” said Ellen.

They finished the shopping, and Rose Ellen caught her train. Peter found her a corner seat in a carriage which contained two old ladies and an immense number of parcels. Just at the last moment, when Rose Ellen gave him both her hands, Peter felt that same sense of something soft and warm; it swept over him and filled him with a desire to go on holding Rose Ellen's hands. Then the train began to move. The warm moment was gone.

CHAPTER XVIII

The library at Sunnings was a very pleasant room; from its window you could see how the lawns ran down to the river. The grass was not as carefully tended as it had been, and the shrubberies were overgrown, but a hundred different shades of spring green made the prospect a pleasing one.

Roden Coverdale sat at a table which faced the windows. Sometimes he sat quite still, watching the sunlight flicker on the distant water; sometimes he looked down, frowning at the newspaper cuttings which were spread on the table before him. There were a good many cuttings, mostly from the Society papers. He began to pick them up and make a little pile of them. Occasionally he read a few words. To the last one he gave a more careful scrutiny. It had only reached him that morning. He read it right through before he laid it down. It was an extract from one of those letters which have become a weekly feature in certain papers:

Guess whom I saw last night—but you'll never! A real close-up, and with my very own
beaux yeux
. I give you three guesses. You don't know? You can't say. Then I s'pose I must tell you—why, the lovely, the beautiful, the
only
Mrs. Virgil P. with the lovely, the beautiful, the
only
Jewel pinned on the front of her frock as usual. My dearest, it's a Dream, a
Scream
. I've been seeing blue, and green, and red, and yellow lights ever since. And Reggie says that a friend of his who's a
great
friend of Marshall Simpkinson—
the
Marshall—says that it's simply
the
only one in the world, and that even
he
doesn't know what it is.

He got up and rang the bell.

“I'm going to town,” he said to the maid who answered it. “The car for the four-fifteen, and have my bag packed—things for a couple of days. Ring up Lady Moreland and tell her I'm coming. Say, if it's at all inconvenient, I'll go on to an hotel. I don't want any letters forwarded.”

Sylvia got her father's message at four. It was the day after Rose Ellen's visit to town. She hung up the receiver, and went to her room, where she dressed for the street.

Ten minutes later she was handing in a telegram addressed to Virgil P. Hendebakker at The Luxe hotel. It ran, “Shares rising”, and was signed “Moreland”.

Roden Coverdale dined alone with his daughter. It was not until after dinner that he gave any reason for his sudden visit to town. Then he leaned back in one of the large, black chairs and said, breaking in suddenly upon some triviality of Sylvia's:

“By the way, have you heard of or come across this Hendebakker man that the papers are so full of?”

“Are they full of him?” said Sylvia innocently.

“They seem to be. I'm getting rather tired of his name. Have you come across him at all?”

“Oh yes.” Sylvia took up
Punch
and began to turn the leaves. “This is a frightfully good cartoon. Have you seen it? What were you saying? The Hendebakkers? Oh yes, I've seen quite a lot of them—Anita's a great friend of mine.”

“Anita?”

“Mrs. Virgil P.”

“Ah yes.”

There was a pause. Sylvia began to feel nervous. Which would be most natural—for her to speak, or remain silent? Should she ask why he was interested in the Hendebakkers, or just leave it to him? But supposing he didn't say anything more! Oh, how she hated it all! And what an utter, utter fool she had been to let a man like Hendebakker get such a hold over her that she must do his bidding or say good-bye to all the things which made life tolerable!

The silence lasted until she could have screamed. Then Coverdale said:

“You are intimate with these people? What is he like?”

Sylvia described Hendebakker: the strength; the heavy build; the light, cold eyes.

“And the wife?” asked Coverdale.

“Oh, quite beautiful—young, you know; much too young for him, but they seem quite happy.”

“And the Jewel that all the papers make such a fuss about?”

Sylvia's nervousness merged into triumph.

“It's the most extraordinary thing,” she said; “it really is. You've never seen anything like it.”

Coverdale got up.

“Haven't I, Sylvia my dear? Well, just between you and me, I rather think I have.”

“Oh!” said Sylvia. She leaned forward, clasping her hands, her eyes shining, her face flushed. “I remember years ago you told me something about a jewel—that time Peter Waring stayed with us. Do you remember? I've never said a word to anyone, but you can't think how much I've wanted to know. You're going to tell me, aren't you? Oh, you must!”

He looked at her, his thin, dark face very grave, his eyes full of melancholy.

“Yes, I'm going to tell you, Sylvia,” he said.

There was a pause. He stood with his back to the fireplace. A tiny fire burned there, just a handful of clear red embers. There were white lilies in the far corner of the room, a great sheaf of them in a rare porcelain jar of the Ming period; the scent hung heavy on the air. Coverdale began to speak, looking sometimes all the flowers, sometimes at his daughter's face:

“You're my only child, Sylvia. I'm going to tell you about the Jewel. I don't know if women ever reach the age of discretion; but most of them are strongly alive to the claims of self-interest. In any case—” he smiled slightly and watched the lamplight fall golden on a lily bud—“in any case, it really matters very little—to me.”

Sylvia's breath came fast.

“Why do you talk like that?” she said. “I never know what you mean. What are you going to tell me? What about the Jewel?”

“Well,” said Coverdale, “just this.” He put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and took out a small silver matchbox. He pressed the spring. The lid flew back, and he shook into the palm of his left hand what appeared to be a screw of tissue paper.

“There,” he said, holding it out to Sylvia, “take the paper off and look at it. At least, if you do talk, you'll be able to say truthfully that you've had the Annam Jewel in your hand.”

Sylvia did not rise or change her position. Her fingers shook as she felt something hard between the folds of paper. Very slowly she undid the wrappings. Three folds—and then, there on the white paper, the Jewel. She looked at it, and could not speak.

“Well?” said Mr. Coverdale. “Ever seen anything like it before, Sylvia?”

“Yes,” said Sylvia in a whisper. “Yes. I don't understand. I saw Anita wear it last night. Are there two?”

Coverdale picked up the Jewel, and held it under the light.

“Two like this?” he said.

Sylvia stared at it. Even to her untrained eyes the thing had a warmth and a glory which staggered her. The golden ray in the heart of it seemed to beat with a living pulse. The red, and the green, and the blue were like a rainbow come alive.

“Well, Sylvia?” said Roden Coverdale.

“Anita has one,” she said, still in that whisper.

He laughed, reached for the tissue paper, and wrapped the Jewel in it carefully.

“There's only one Jewel,” he said. “But I shall be interested to see Mrs. Hendebakker's copy.”

He put the matchbox into his pocket.

“And now, my dear, I have to write a letter. May I use your table?”

Sylvia stood beside him at the little escritoire until she was sure that he had all he needed; then she slipped out of the room. When she returned she had a filmy scrap of a handkerchief in her hand. Inside the handkerchief there was a twist of tissue paper; and inside the tissue paper a coat button of a suitable size and shape.