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The Brightener
The Brightener
PREFACE
To the Kind People Who Read Our Books:
I want to explain to you, in case it may interest you a little, why it is that I want to keep the "firm name" (as we used to call it) of "C. N. & A. M. Williamson," although my husband has gone out of this world.
It is because I feel very strongly that he helps me with the work even more than he was able to do in this world. I always had his advice, and when we took motor tours he gave me his notes to use as well as my own. But now there is far more help than that. I cannot explain in words: I can only feel. And because of that feeling, I could not bear to have the "C. N." disappear from the title page.
Dear People who may read this, I hope that you will wish to see the initials "C. N." with those of
A. M. Williamson
BOOK I
THE YACHT
CHAPTER I
DOWN AND OUT
"I wonder who will tell her," I heard somebody say, just outside the arbour.
The somebody was a woman; and the somebody else who answered was a man. "Glad it won't be me!" he replied, ungrammatically.
I didn't know who these somebodies were, and I didn't much care. For the first instant the one thing I did care about was, that they should remain outside my arbour, instead of finding their way in. Then, the next words waked my interest. They sounded mysterious, and I loved mysteries —then.
"It's an awful thing to happen – a double blow, in the same moment!" exclaimed the woman.
They had come to a standstill, close to the arbour; but there was hope that they mightn't discover it, because it wasn't an ordinary arbour. It was really a deep, sweet-scented hollow scooped out of an immense arbor vitæ tree, camouflaged to look like its sister trees in a group beside the path. The hollow contained an old marble seat, on which I was sitting, but the low entrance could only be reached by one who knew of its existence, passing between those other trees.
I felt suddenly rather curious about the person struck by a "double blow," for a "fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind"; and at that moment I was a sort of modern, female Damocles myself. In fact, I had got the Marchese d'Ardini to bring me away from the ball-room to hide in this secret arbour of his old Roman garden, because my mood was out of tune for dancing. I hadn't wished to come to the ball, but Grandmother had insisted. Now I had made an excuse of wanting an ice, to get rid of my dear old friend the Marchese for a few minutes.
"She couldn't have cared about the poor chap," said the man in a hard voice, with a slight American accent, "or she wouldn't be here to-night."
My heart missed a beat.
"They say," explained the woman, "that her grandmother practically forced her to marry the prince, and arranged it at a time when he'd have to go back to the Front an hour after the wedding, so they shouldn't be really married, if anything happened to him. I don't know whether that's true or not!"
But I knew! I knew that it was true, because they were talking about me. In an instant – before I'd decided whether to rush out or sit still – I knew something more.