Fate Cannot Harm Me Read online

  Them, too, the wild spirit of the fair had seized. The lights, the music, the discordant din, the revelling crowd had intoxicated Millie; the staid typist was gone, in her place a wild young woman, screaming aloud in her excitement.

  “We’re going higher than you,” she shouted triumphantly to Cynthia as the two boats passed in their course.

  The challenge was accepted as soon as uttered.

  “Pull, Robin, like mad—we must go higher,” Cynthia implored, and then as the boats crossed again she called out breathlessly.

  “We’re higher than you, we’re higher than you.”

  Up to the heavens they soared, far, far above the horizontal, into the black night, and then down again in a sweeping circle towards the earth, and up again on the other side. Impossible to go higher—had any one in a swing-boat ever swung so high before? And yet still from the rival pair came cries of triumph and defiance. If Millie had read the classical economists (which, once more, she had not) she would no doubt have animadverted upon the potency of the competitive spirit—as things were, she urged on her swain to doughtier efforts with simpler words.

  “Pull, Albert,” she screamed, “pull, pull! We must go above them.” What else on earth mattered except that? Let empires perish and cities burn, if only her boat could soar above the rest unquestionably supreme.

  And in the other boat Cynthia and Robin pulled too, as though their lives depended on their exertions.

  It was Cynthia who, at that instant, saw their imminent peril. The owner of the swing-boats, deciding that his clients had had their money’s worth, advanced to put a stop to their career. Already his hand was on the great piece of wood, half log, half plank, with which the boats were stopped. Once it was applied to the wooden underpart of their boat they must in a few short moments come inevitably to rest. But Cynthia spied in time his purpose.

  “Quickly, Robin, throw him down some money before he stops us.” Robin released his rope with one hand, while with the other he still hauled fiercely; he fumbled in his pocket, and discovered a half-crown; as they swept past the ground he dropped it; the owner acknowledged it with a wave of his hand, and dropped his plank. They were safe now, safe to swing for as long as they would.

  But the owner had moved on, and now he seized the plank under Millie’s boat. She, too, realized his intention; she, too, cried to her cavalier to act.

  “Albert, quick, pay him some more, or he’ll stop us!’ she shouted, and Albert, in his turn, fired by the zest of conflict, fumbled in his pocket and found a sixpence. He, too, dropped it, as the boat swung downwards. Alas, his aim was not so accurate as Robin’s! The coin fell on the grass too soon, and a small boy, who had marked with greedy eye the shower of silver from a generous heaven, pounced upon it, and fled, swift as light, away from the swinging boats.

  “Again, oh, try again, find another sixpence,” implored Millie, reckless with excitement, but Albert shook his head in stubborn refusal.

  The plank jarred against the boat, it jarred a second time, and yet again. Gradually, jerkily, wretchedly the boat was brought to rest. In silence Albert offered Millie his hand to help her out; fiercely she refused his help. Her eyes were fixed in desperate envy on the other boat still swinging through the sky. They stepped on to the grass.

  “I hate a mean man,” she said.

  “I’ve not much use for an extravagant girl,” said Albert Hinshby, who was not disposed to take a reproof meekly.

  “You needn’t expect me to come out on Wednesday,” she flashed out at him, and then suddenly realized that she was crying. She turned away so that Albert shouldn’t see those ridiculous tears, and then, with her head in the air, she marched towards the gate.

  Now Cynthia and Robin were swinging in long, slow, restful movement, for the fury of the contest was over. Up and down they went, almost without effort. And she smiled at him, as though praising him for their common triumph. For the first time since he had come to Critton Robin felt content; at last he had Cynthia to himself—raised above the throng of people they were in the truest sense alone. Alone for the first time. Ever since they had arrived at Critton Robin had hoped and worked for this moment, but always he had been foiled. Basil had been at his elbow or Lady Dormansland had summoned him and Cynthia to her side. Yes, every effort on his part to be alone with Cynthia had been frustrated, and now, by a stroke of fortune, in the midst of the crowd and turmoil they were at last alone. The wild spirit of the fair was in his blood too—diffidence gave way to recklessness, all his inhibitions and repressions were swept away, he felt the sense of power.

  “Cynthia,” he said, letting go his rope with one hand, and trying to take hold of hers.

  “Donkey, don’t let go of your rope, we shall lose all our height,” she said, but her eyes sparkled, for she knew what was in his mind.

  Obediently he went on pulling with both hands at his rope, but he stared into her eyes, and the words came in a rush.

  “Cynthia, I love you, you must know that I do. For weeks, for months, I’ve thought of nothing but you. Say that you’ll marry me.”

  “Robin dear, I shall have to stop the boat,” she said—but she went on pulling all the same.

  It would have been hard just then to describe her emotions. Something of the wild abandon of the fair was in her blood, she liked Robin, and she knew that he loved her; perhaps too she felt a sort of pity for him as well as liking. But love and marriage? That was something different. Feverishly she tried to bring the conversation back to the easy level of joke and badinage.

  “Poor boy,” she said, “it must be dreadfully hard to propose when you’re pulling on a rope all the time. I wonder if anyone has ever proposed before without the use of either of his hands.”

  “For God’s sake don’t joke about it, Cynthia. It’s life and death to me. Say you love me. I’ll do anything for you, Cynthia. I’m not the sort of waster that half your friends are. Can’t you see that I hate all this Society nonsense; I’ve always felt—I know—that you hate and despise it as much as I do; you care as little as I do for the people you meet and the life you live. Marry me and come away and see what life can really be. We’ll go round the world together, and see a thousand things, and then I’ll write far, far better than I ever have before. And we’ll leave all the pettiness and jealousies and clever things behind. If you’re with me I can do work that will live—I know I can. I’ve never failed yet at anything that I really tried to do. Marry me, Cynthia—you must marry me.”

  All the smile had gone from her face, and she answered him very gently.

  “Robin dear, thank you for—for saying all that. You know I like you, but I don’t think I love you—not like that. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t say what isn’t true. I … Oh! I don’t know what I feel …”

  He seized on the half confession ruthlessly.

  “Then you don’t mean that it’s hopeless. That’s enough for me; if there’s a chance I shall win. Wait, Cynthia, and I’ll make you love me. Say anyhow that I may try again. I shall ask you and ask you till you say, ‘Yes.’”

  For the first time she felt his compelling force, his strength, his determination. It wasn’t pity now which moved her—but something more akin to fear. It was vain to try to tell him that his ideas were not hers; that she loved her life and her friends, whatever he might think of both. Words of acquiescence seemed to be forced from her lips; she felt dominated, overawed by him. With a feeling of helplessness she sought desperately for a respite.

  “Wait till your book is finished,” she said, “then ask me again.”

  A smile of triumph lit up his face.

  “Yes. I will wait till then,” he said, and pulled at his rope as though he would heave them up to heaven.

  “I feel as though I were ringing a wedding bell,” he cried. She dropped her rope from her hands.

  “Stop, we’ve been here long enough. We must go back to the others. And, please, please, Robin, remember that you have promised to say nothing till th
e book is finished—nothing to me, nothing to any one else.”

  He nodded, and slowly, gradually, he checked the swinging-boat. To her as she stepped on to the ground it seemed as though she stepped out of a world of madness and back into safety and common happy things. Gently but firmly she disengaged her arm from Robin’s as they approached the cars.

  Lady Sevenoaks was speaking. “Then some wretched man must have stolen my beautiful vase; never mind, Daisy, I shall give you the coal-scuttle; Bertie’s just carrying it along for me.”

  Lady Dormansland placed her bag and a bottle of scent protectively on her lap.

  “He must bring it back in his own car,” she said firmly, “there isn’t room here; how kind of you to give it to me after I’d been so stupid in not watching the vase and the coconuts.”

  Chapter XII

  “Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul

  When hot for certainties in this our life!”

  MEREDITH

  One by one the tables at the Trufflers had emptied; half an hour before, the last of the other diners had got up and strolled from the room. We had drunk our coffee and our brandy.

  “Would you like to move to the smoking-room” Monty asked me, “or shall we stay here?”

  “I’d rather stay here; to tell the truth I’m all on edge to hear the end of the story. You have the storyteller’s gifts.”

  “Then we must have another glass of brandy.” He got up and touched the bell.

  I had tried to speak casually, but it was the bare truth that I was desperately, almost unbearably, eager to know how the tale would end. Not once but several times I had been seized with a foreboding that one or other of Cynthia’s admirers had already robbed me of my chance of happiness. As Monty had described the scene in the swing-boat I had with difficulty refrained from imploring him to tell me the outcome at once, and to put me out of my misery. But common sense had come to my aid. Once again I reminded myself that all must be well—Monty himself had said that the story had a happy ending; he had told me that neither Paraday-Royne nor Hedley was likely to be seen again in London; above all I had no letter from Lady Dennison. Her I could trust. She would have written as she had promised if Cynthia was lost to me. It was certain then that I was safe. Somehow Cynthia had escaped both those men. Odd that, though I had in a manner liked both of them in the old days, I now felt a gnawing jealousy towards both! Illogically I felt as though they had been trying to rob me of my own in my absence. Well, I should soon hear how they had been thwarted. If I had waited all these long months I could wait a little longer. There was no need to betray, even to Monty, my own passionate interest in Cynthia. And so I forced myself to speak as though my interest was purely objective.

  “It’s really quite exciting, and I confess I can’t see how it’s going to turn out”

  Monty smiled.

  “You’re a very good listener, and honestly, I’m enjoying putting the whole tale together. I’ve never done that before, naturally—you see, I saw it bit by bit.”

  He paused, as the waiter returned with the brandy, and watched him pour it reverently into the two great glass goblets which stood before us.

  “I ordered this without consulting you, but any other liqueur would have been an insult. This is the 1820, and I think you appreciate it. Personally I like it even better than the 1811, the Comet year.”

  He motioned to the waiter to leave the bottle on the table, and slowly swilled the dark golden liquid round the bottom of his glass, holding it cupped in his two hands.

  He looked at me with the old, slightly quizzical, humorous, friendly smile and lifted the glass to his lips.

  “Once more I welcome you back, Anthony,” he said. “May your return be a very happy one.”

  I raised my own glass in reply.

  “It must be so, I think,” I said. “You’ve made me feel that home-coming is really a grand experience. And your dinner has made me feel a king. ‘Fate cannot harm me. I have dined to-day.’”

  “Good man. That’s just how I wanted you to feel. We’ll light another cigar, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story, for we’re near the end of it now. But before I go on with the tale there’s one thing which I ought to tell you, for I’d got, hadn’t I, to the August of last year?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes, you stopped at the Beachington fair in August.”

  “Exactly. Well, as a matter of fact, I had to leave Critton in a hurry the next day, for I had a wire to say that my poor old aunt was dying.”

  I murmured my sympathy.

  “No, you need not feel that. Poor old lady, she had suffered a lot, and it was what the religious folk call a happy release. She was a dear, and I knew I should miss her, but I couldn’t feel sorry that she was out of pain. She’d always told me, you know, that the bulk of her money was to come to me, but somehow I’d never thought much about it. I’d supposed in a vague kind of way that I should come into an odd hundred or two when everything had been settled up. As a matter of fact she had left quite a lot of money—it brings me in about fifteen hundred a year.”

  A little smile passed over Monty’s lips.

  “You’ve been thinking, old friend, that I was spending much more on this dinner for you than I ought to be able to afford. Confess now, you were worried a little because you thought I was being extravagant.”

  I blushed ever so slightly, for that had been exactly what I had been thinking for the last hour. When one is far too rich oneself it is misery to feel that one’s friends are spending money which they can ill afford.

  “Well, you can enjoy your brandy with a clear conscience. With what I earn, and what my aunt left me, and what came along… but I’m anticipating. Anyhow, I’m comfortably off nowadays and can well afford occasionally to do myself well—though I never forget how you once came to the rescue when I really was stony.”

  I blushed again and felt a little embarrassed, yet somehow glad that Monty had not forgotten that small service.

  “Let’s have the rest of the story,” I said.

  “With the greatest pleasure—that is, if you’re really not bored by it.’

  Paraday-Royne, Hedley; Hedley, Paraday-Royne, you must remember that they were always the leading figures, the protagonists, though I know that that tiresome fellow Monty Renshaw has been thrusting his way in a good deal. But fundamentally my tale is a sort of double biography—it’s the tale of the rivalry of those two men. That’s where the dramatic interest lies. It was a bitter sort of rivalry, too, as you’ve guessed by now, and all the more bitter because it was disguised from the world up to the very end. Why, right up to that astonishing denouement almost every one in London thought of them as the modern counterparts of David and Jonathan—but again I’m anticipating. I really must tell the story in the same way as I began it.

  That autumn Monty watched with growing interest the preparations which were made for the publication of Ladies’ Lure. Some books seem to slip into the world as though by accident, whilst others are advertised and talked about before their appearance to a quite astonishing extent. I don’t suppose that any book in the last few years had been more boosted than Ladies’ Lure. Believe me, whoever was responsible for its publicity knew his job. Every gossip column and every “literary page” seemed to be full of it. Of course, Robin Hedley was a considerable writer, and he, and his publisher, made no secret of regarding the new book as something superior to any of his previous work, Pertinacity included. But that alone didn’t explain the interest which was excited. Probably the uncertainty helped; it was to be a novel about modern Society—so much everyone knew—but was it to be satirical or merely photographic, did it have a message to give or just a story to tell; was it likely to be an ephemeral picture of the life of the day, or was it to deal with the great permanent emotions, using the life of London Society as a convenient, but unimportant, background? And, of course, the human element came in. One writer after another, at a loss to fill his column, would slip in a sentence or two abou
t Paraday-Royne and Hedley, whose literary friendship was always good copy. “I am told that in his new novel the distinguished author of Pertinacity has benefited even more than before from the critical assistance of Basil Paraday-Royne. The friendship of these two writers, which does honour to them both, is a notable example of the goodwill which pervades the world of letters. How pleasant to see help thus generously offered and graciously accepted! It will be a surprise indeed if Ladies’ Lure does not accurately reflect not only Mr. Hedley’s solid craftsmanship but also the critical acumen and the nicety of phrase which has always characterized Mr. Paraday-Royne’s writings. In such circumstances it is a duty to borrow and a privilege to lend. Almost one might speak of collaboration, though it is true that one name only will appear on the title-page.” How often did Monty read such paragraphs as that, and how much they annoyed him!

  “Pompous twaddle!” he would exclaim, flinging down the paper. “But good publicity. The romantic touch, and all that, and a thoroughly sentimental appeal. I wonder if it’s possible to be too sentimental if you want a big public?”