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

and next morning a hard-featured, handsome woman very well dressed in the fashion of about 1892 arrived at Ararat House. She undertook to find someone to help, and also to procure at once the absolute necessities for the kitchen. Miss Harper was a great relief to Michael, though he did not think he liked her very much; and he made up his mind to get rid of her, as soon as some sort of domestic comfort was perceptible. Lily would arrive about four o’clock, and he drove off to King’s Cross to meet her. He felt greatly excited by the prospect of introducing her to Maurice, who for a wonder was punctually waiting for him on the platform.

Lily evidently liked Maurice, and Michael was rather disappointed when he said he could not come back with them to assist at the first entry into Ararat House. Maurice had certainly given him to understand that he was free this afternoon.

“Look in at Grosvenor Road on your way home tonight,” said Maurice. “Or will you be very late?”

“Oh, no, I shan’t be late,” Michael answering, flushing. He had a notion that Maurice was implying a suspicion of him by his invitation. It seemed as if he were testing his behavior.

Lily liked the rooms; and, although she thought the Carpaccio bedroom was a little bare, it was soon strewn with her clothes, and made thereby inhabitable.

“And of course,” said Michael, “you’ve got to buy lots and lots of clothes this fortnight. How much do you want to spend? Two hundred⁠—three hundred pounds?”

The idea of buying clothes on such a scale of extravagance seemed to delight her, and she kissed him, he thought almost for the first time, in mere affection without a trace of passion. Michael felt happy that he had so much money for her to spend, and he was glad that no one had been given authority to interfere with his capital. There flashed through his mind a comparison of himself with the Chevalier des Grieux, and, remembering how soon that money had come to an end, he was glad that Lily would not be exposed to the temptation which had ruined Manon.

“And do you like Miss Harper?” he inquired.

“Yes, she seems all right.”

They went out to dine in town, and came back about eleven to find the flat looking wonderfully settled. Michael confessed how much he had forgotten to order, but Lily talked of her dresses and took no interest in household affairs.

“I think I ought to go now,” said Michael.

“Oh, no, stay a little longer.”

But he would not, feeling the violent necessity to impress upon her as much as possible, during this fortnight before they were married, how important were the conventions of life, even when it was going to be lived in so strange a place as Ararat House.

“Oh, you’re going now?” said Miss Harper, looking at him rather curiously.

“I shall be round in the morning. You’ll finish making the lists of what you still want?”

Michael felt very deeply plunged into domestic arrangements, as he drove to Grosvenor Road.

Maurice was sitting up for him, but Castleton had gone to bed.

“Look here, old chap,” Maurice began at once, “you can’t possibly marry that girl.”

Michael frowned.

“You too?”

“I know all about her,” Maurice went on. “I’ve never actually met her, but I recognized her at once. Even if you did know her people five years ago, you ought to have taken care to find out what had happened in between. As a matter of fact, I happen to know a man who’s had an affair with her⁠—a painter called Walker. Ronnie Walker. He’s often up here. You’re bound to meet him some time.”

“Not at all, if I never come here again,” said Michael, in a cold rage.

“It’s no use for you to be angry with me,” said Maurice. “I should be a rotten friend, if I didn’t warn you.”

“Oh, go to hell!” said Michael, and he marched out of the studio.

“I’ll die first,” retorted Maurice, grinning.

Maurice came on the landing and called, begging him to come up and not to be so hasty, but Michael paid no attention.

“So much for 422 Grosvenor Road,” he said, slamming the big front door behind him. He heard Maurice calling to him from the window, but he walked on without turning his head.

It was a miserable coincidence that one of his friends should know about her. It was a disappointment, but it could not be helped. If Maurice chattered about a disastrous marriage, why, other friends would have to be dropped in the same way. After all, he had been aware from the first moment of his resolve that this sort of thing was bound to happen. It left him curiously indifferent.

A week passed. There were hundreds of daffodils blooming in the garden round Ararat House; and April bringing an unexpected halcyon was the very April of the poets whose verses haunted that great rococo room. Every day Michael went with Lily to dressmakers and worshiped her taste. Every day he bought her old pieces of jewelry, old fans, or old silver, or pots of purple hyacinths. He was just conscious that it was London and the prime of the Spring; but mostly he lived in the enchantment of her presence. Often they walked up and down the still deserted garden, by the edge of the canal. The swans used to glide nearer to them, waiting for bread to be thrown; and Lily would stand with her hair in a stream of sunlight and her arms moving languidly like the necks of the birds she was feeding. Nor was she less graceful in the long luminous dusks under the young moon and the yellow evening star that were shining upon them as they walked by the edge of the water.

For a week Michael lived in a city that was become a mere background to the swoons and fevers of love. He knew that round him houses blinked in the night and that chimney-smoke curled upward in