Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

in this lucid hour of deliberation, which made the future normal and even obvious. There was a great relief in this fresh following breeze after the becalmed inaction of Oxford: it seemed an augury of life’s importance that so immediately on top of the Oxford dream he should find such a complete dispersion of mist and so urgent a fairway before him. The task of finding Lily might easily occupy him for some time, for a life like hers would be made up of mutable appearances and sudden strange eclipses. It might well be a year before she was seen again on the Orient Promenade. Yet it was just as likely that he would find her at once. For a moment he caught his breath in thinking of the sudden plunge which that meeting would involve. He thought of all the arguments and all the dismay that the revelation of his purpose would set in motion. However, the marriage had to be. He had threshed it all out last night. But he might reasonably hope for a brief delay. Such a hope was no disloyalty to his determination.

Stella was already at breakfast when he came downstairs. Michael raised his eyebrows in demand for news of her and Alan.

“Mother was the sweetest thing imaginable,” she said. “And so we’re engaged. I wanted to come and talk to you last night, but I thought you would rather be left alone.”

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he said gravely. “And I’m glad you’re safe.”

Stella looked at him in surprise.

“I’ve never been anything but safe,” she assured him.

“Haven’t you?” he asked, looking at her and reproving himself for the thought that this gray-eyed sister of his could ever have exposed herself to the least likelihood of falling into Lily’s case. Yet there had been times when he had felt alarmed for her security and happiness. There had been that fellow Ayliffe, and more serious still there had been that unknown influence in Vienna. Invulnerable she might seem now in this cool dining-room on a summer morning, but there had been times when he had doubted.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, flaunting her imperious boyishness in his solemn countenance.

“You. Thinking you ought to be damned grateful.”

“What for?”

“Everything.”

“You included, I suppose,” she laughed.

Still it had been rather absurd, Michael thought, as he tapped his egg, to suppose there was anything in Stella’s temperament which could ever link her to Lily. Should he announce his quest for her approbation and sympathy? It was difficult somehow to begin. Already a subtle change had taken place in their relation to each other since she was engaged to Alan. Of course, his reserve was ridiculous, but he could not bring himself to break through now. Besides, in any case it were better to wait until he had found Lily again. It would all sound very pretentiously noble in anticipation, and though she would have every right to laugh, he did not want her to laugh. When he stood on the brink of marriage, they would none of them be able to laugh. There was a grim satisfaction in that.

“When does mother suggest you should be married?” he asked.

“We more or less settled November. Alan has given up the Civil Service. That’s my first piece of self-assertion. He’s coming for me this morning, and we’re going to lunch at Richmond.”

“You’ve never met Mr. and Mrs. Merivale?”

Stella shook her head.

“Old Merivale’s a ripping old boy. Always making bad puns. And Mrs. Merivale’s a dear.”

“They must both be perfect to have been the father and mother of Alan,” said Stella.

“I shouldn’t get too excited over him,” Michael advised. “Or over yourself, either. You might give me the credit of knowing all about it long before either of you.”

“Darling Michael,” she cried, bounding at him like a puppy.

“When you’ve done making an ass of yourself you might chuck me a roll.”

Alan arrived soon after breakfast, and he and Michael had a few minutes together, while Stella was getting ready to go out.

“Were your people pleased?” Michael asked.

“Oh, of course. Naturally the mater was a little nervous. She thought I seemed young. Talked a good deal about being a little boy only yesterday and that sort of rot.”

“And your governor?”

“He supposed I was determined to steal her,” said Alan, with a whimsical look of apology for the pun. “And having worked that off he spent the rest of the evening relishing his own joke.”

Stella came down ready to start for Richmond. Both she and Alan were in white, and Michael said they looked like a couple of cricketers. But he envied them as he waved them farewell from the front door through which the warm day was deliciously invading the house. Their happiness sparkled on the air as visibly almost as the sunshine winking on the river. Those Richmond days belonged imperishably to him and Alan, yet for Alan this Saturday would triumph over all the others before. Michael turned back into the house rather sadly. The radiance of the morning had been dislustered by their departure, and Michael against his will had to be aware of the sense of exclusion which lovers leave in their wake. He waited indoors until his mother came down. She was solicitous for the headache of last night, and while he was with her he was not troubled by regrets for the breakup of established intercourse. He asked himself whether he should take her into his confidence by announcing the tale of Lily. Yet he did not wish to give her an impression of being more straightly bound to follow his quest than by the broadest rules of conduct. He felt it would be easier to explain when the marriage had taken place. How lucky for him that he was not financially dependent! That he was not, however, laid upon him the greater obligation. He could find, even if he wished one, no excuse for unfulfillment.

Michael and his mother talked for a time of the engagement. She was still somewhat doubtful of Alan’s