Chapter XIX
Her maid woke Jean Briggerland at eight o'clock the next morning.
"Oh, miss," she said, as she drew up the table for the chocolate, "haveyou heard about Mrs. Meredith?"
Jean blinked open her eyes, slipped into her dressing jacket and sat upwith a yawn.
"Have I heard about Mrs. Meredith? Many times," she said.
"But what somebody did last night, miss?"
Jean was wide awake now.
"What has happened to Mrs. Meredith?" she asked.
"Why, miss, somebody played a practical joke on her. Her bed's sopping."
"Sopping?" frowned the girl.
"Yes, miss," the woman nodded. "They must have poured buckets of waterover it, and used up all Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's peroxide, what she usesfor keeping her hands nice."
Jean swung out of her bed and sat looking down at her tiny white feet.
"Where did Mrs. Meredith sleep? Why didn't she wake us up?"
"She slept in the dressing-room, miss. I don't suppose the young ladyliked making a fuss."
"Who did it?"
"I don't know who did it. It's a silly kind of practical joke, and Iknow none of the maids would have dared, not the French ones."
Jean put her feet into her slippers, exchanged her jacket for a gown,and went on a tour of inspection.
Lydia was dressing in her room, and the sound of her fresh, young voice,as she carolled out of sheer love of life, came to the girl before sheturned into the room.
One glance at the bed was sufficient. It was still wet, and the emptyperoxide bottle told its own story.
Jean glanced at it thoughtfully as she crossed into the dressing-room.
"Whatever happened last night, Lydia?"
Lydia turned at the voice.
"Oh, the bed you mean," she made a little face. "Heaven knows. Itoccurred to me this morning that some person, out of mistaken kindness,had started to disinfect the room--it was only this morning that Irecalled the little boy who was ill--and had overdone it."
"They've certainly overdone it," said Jean grimly. "I wonder what poorMrs. Cole-Mortimer will say. You haven't the slightest idea----"
"Not the slightest idea," said Lydia, answering the unspoken question.
"I'll see Mrs. Cole-Mortimer and get her to change your bed--there'sanother room you could have," suggested Jean.
She went back to her own apartment, bathed and dressed leisurely.
She found her father in the garden reading the _Nicoise_, under theshade of a bush, for the sun was not warm, but at that hour, blinding.
"I've changed my plans," she said without preliminary.
He looked up over his glasses.
"I didn't know you had any," he said with heavy humour.
"I intended going back to London and taking you with me," she saidunexpectedly.
"Back to London?" he said incredulously. "I thought you were staying onfor a month."
"I probably shall now," she said, pulling up a basket-chair and sittingby his side. "Give me a cigarette."
"You're smoking a lot lately," he said as he handed his case to her.
"I know I am."
"Have your nerves gone wrong?"
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and her lips curled.
"It wouldn't be remarkable if I inherited a little of your yellowstreak," she said coolly, and he growled something under his breath."No, my nerves are all right, but a cigarette helps me to think."
"A yellow streak, have I?" Mr. Briggerland was annoyed. "And I've beenout since five o'clock this morning----" he stopped.
"Doing--what?" she asked curiously.
"Never mind," he said with a lofty gesture.
Thus they sat, busy with their own thoughts, for a quarter of an hour.
"Jean."
"Yes," she said without turning her head.
"Don't you think we'd better give this up and get back to London? LordStoker is pretty keen on you."
"I'm not pretty keen on him," she said decidedly. "He has his regimentalpay and L500 a year, two estates, mortgaged, no brains and a title--whatis the use of his title to me? As much use as a coat of paint! Besidewhich, I am essentially democratic."
He chuckled, and there was another silence.
"Do you think the lawyer is keen on the girl?"
"Jack Glover?"
Mr. Briggerland nodded.
"I imagine he is," said Jean thoughtfully. "I like Jack--he's clever. Hehas all the moral qualities which one admires so much in the abstract. Icould love Jack myself."
"Could he love you?" bantered her father.
"He couldn't," she said shortly. "Jack would be a happy man if he sawme stand in Jim Meredith's place in the Old Bailey. No, I have noillusion about Jack's affections."
"He's after Lydia's money I suppose," said Mr. Briggerland, stroking hisbald head.
"Don't be a fool," was the calm reply. "That kind of man doesn't worryabout a girl's money. I wish Lydia was dead," she added without malice."It would make things so easy and smooth."
Her father swallowed something.
"You shock me sometimes, Jean," he said, a statement which amused her.
"You're such a half-and-half man," she said with a note of contempt inher voice. "You were quite willing to benefit by Jim Meredith's death;you killed him as cold-bloodedly as you killed poor little Bulford, andyet you must whine and snivel whenever your deeds are put into plainlanguage. What does it matter if Lydia dies now or in fifty years time?"she asked. "It would be different if she were immortal. You peopleattach so much importance to human life--the ancients, and the Japaneseamongst the modern, are the only people who have the matter in trueperspective. It is no more cruel to kill a human being than it is to cutthe throat of a pig to provide you with bacon. There's hardly a dish atyour table which doesn't represent wilful murder, and yet you neverthink of it, but because the man animal can talk and dresses himself orherself in queer animal and vegetable fabrics, and decorates the bodywith bits of metal and pieces of glittering quartz, you give its life avalue which you deny to the cattle within your gates! Killing is amatter of expediency. Permissible if you call it war, terrible if youcall it murder. To me it is just killing. If you are caught in the actof killing they kill you, and people say it is right to do so. Thesacredness of human life is a slogan invented by cowards who feardeath--as you do."
"Don't you, Jean?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"I fear life without money," she said quietly. "I fear long days of workfor a callous, leering employer, and strap-hanging in a crowded tube onmy way home to one miserable room and the cold mutton of yesterday. Ifear getting up and making my own bed and washing my own handkerchiefsand blouses, and renovating last year's hats to make them look like thisyear's. I fear a poor husband and a procession of children, and doingthe housework with an incompetent maid, or maybe without any at all.Those are the things I fear, Mr. Briggerland."
She dusted the ash from her dress and got up.
"I haven't forgotten the life we lived at Ealing," she saidsignificantly.
She looked across the bay to Monte Carlo glittering in the morningsunlight, to the green-capped head of Cap-d'Ail, to Beaulieu, a jewelset in greystone and shook her head.
"'It is written'," she quoted sombrely and left him in the midst of thequestion he was asking. She strolled back to the house and joined Lydiawho was looking radiantly beautiful in a new dress of silver greycharmeuse.