‘Francis,’ she said, ‘someone is waiting to see you.’
Francis Wilmot did not stir, but his eyes opened and cleared strangely. To Fleur they seemed suddenly the eyes she had known; as if all these days they had been ‘out’, and someone had again put a match to them.
‘You understand what I mean?’
The words came clear and feeble: ‘Yes; but if I wasn’t good enough for her before, I surely am not now. Tell her I’m through with that fool business.’
A lump rose in Fleur’s throat.
‘Thank her for coming!’ said Francis Wilmot, and closed his eyes again.
Fleur went back into the lobby. Marjorie Ferrar was standing against the wall with an unlighted cigarette between her lips.
‘He thanks you for coming; but he doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry I brought you down.’
Marjorie Ferrar took out the cigarette. Fleur could see her lips quivering. ‘Will he get well?’
‘I don’t know. I think so – now. He says he’s “Through with that fool business.”’
Marjorie Ferrar’s lips tightened. She opened the outer door, turned suddenly, and said:
‘Will you make it up?’
‘No,’ said Fleur.
There was a moment of complete stillness: then Marjorie Ferrar gave a little laugh, and slipped out.
Fleur went back. He was asleep. Next day he was stronger. Three days later Fleur ceased her visits; he was on the road to recovery. She had become conscious moreover, that she had a little lamb which, wherever Mary went, was sure to go. She was being shadowed! How amusing! And what a bore that she couldn’t tell Michael; because she had not yet begun again to tell him anything.
On the day that she ceased her visits he came in while she was dressing for dinner, with a ‘weekly’ in his hand.
‘Listen to this,’ he said:
FONDOUK
‘“When to God’s fondouk the donkeys are taken –
Donkeys of Africa, Sicily, Spain –
If peradventure the Deity waken,
He shall not easily slumber again.
Where in the sweet of God’s straw they have laid them
Broken and dead of their burdens and sores,
He, for a change, shall remember He made them –
One of the best of His numerous chores –
Order from someone a sigh of repentance –
Donkeys of Araby, Syria, Greece –
Over the fondouk distemper the sentence:
God’s own forsaken – the stable of peace.”’
‘Who’s that by? It sounds like Wilfrid.’
‘It is by Wilfrid,’ said Michael, and did not look at her. ‘I met him at the Hotch-Potch.’
‘And how is he?’
‘Very fit.’
‘Have you asked him here?’
‘No. He’s going East again soon.’
Was he fishing? Did he know that she had seen him? And she said:
‘I’m going down to father’s, Michael. He’s written twice.’
Michael put her hand to his lips.
‘All right, darling.’
Fleur reddened; her strangled confidence seemed knotted in her throat. She went next day with Kit and Dandie. The ‘little lamb’ would hardly follow to ‘The Shelter’.
Annette had gone with her mother to Cannes for a month; and Soames was alone with the English winter. He was paying little attention to it, for the ‘case’ was in the list, and might be reached in a few weeks’ time. Deprived of French influence, he was again wavering towards compromise. The announcement of Marjorie Ferrar’s engagement to MacGown had materially changed the complexion of affairs. In the eyes of a British jury, the character of a fast young lady, and the character of the same young lady publicly engaged to a Member of Parliament, with wealth and a handle to his name, would not be at all the same thing. They were now virtually dealing with Lady MacGown, and nothing, Soames knew, was so fierce as a man about to be married. To libel his betrothed was like approaching a mad dog.
He looked very grave when Fleur told him of her ‘little lamb’. It was precisely the retaliation he had feared; nor could he tell her that he had ‘told her so’, because he hadn’t. He had certainly urged her to come down to him, but delicacy had forbidden him to give her the reason. So far as he could tell through catechism, there had been nothing ‘suspect’ in her movements since Lippinghall, except those visits to the Cosmopolis Hotel. But they were had enough. Who was going to believe that she went to this sick young man out of pure kindness? Such a motive was not current in a Court of Law. He was staggered when she told him that Michael didn’t know of them. Why not?
‘I didn’t feel like telling him.’
‘Feel? Don’t you see what a position you’ve put yourself in? Here you are, running to a young man’s bedside, without your husband’s knowledge.’