Enter Bridget | Page 7

know!" cried Bridget; "but fancy wasting any little sweetness one may possess on the desert air of Sandbay. I should simply go mad--stark, staring mad. Carrissima," she continued, "I suppose you know heaps and heaps of people. So did I when my father was alive--people who do things, whose names you read in the papers, who think for themselves and make others follow their lead. Oh, I long to be in the movement!"
Rising slowly from her chair, and with perfect coolness, she took a framed cabinet photograph from a table between the windows.
"Is this Colonel Faversham?" she asked. "I remember him now quite distinctly."
The portrait showed a man of middle height, rather taller than Lawrence, with much broader shoulders. His face had an almost dissipated expression, and he wore a large, pointed moustache. His hair was still plentiful, although it had been grey when Bridget last saw him; his eyes were somewhat prominent, and he held himself unusually erect.
"How old is your father?" asked Bridget.
"Sixty-five," was the answer.
"He doesn't look so old!"
"Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to hear you say that!" cried Carrissima. "But the photograph was taken some years ago."
"Have you only one brother?" asked Bridget.
"Only one living. I had another brother and a sister. They came between me and Lawrence, and died a long time ago."
"I love looking at photographs," said Bridget, putting that of Colonel Faversham back in its place. "I hope you don't mind--whose is this?" she inquired, taking up another frame.
"Oh, that is Jimmy!" cried Carrissima.
"Why do you laugh?" said Bridget.
"I really don't quite know. There's nothing very comical in his appearance, is there? Only somehow one does laugh about him."
"I think," said Bridget, "he is one of the pleasantest-looking men I have ever seen."
"Yes, Jimmy has a nice face," returned Carrissima.
"Of course," Bridget continued, with her eyes still on the photograph, "it isn't so distinctly handsome as Mark's."
"Perhaps not," was the answer; "I thought you had seen him while we were at Crowborough. Mr. Clynesworth. Although his name is Rupert everybody has called him Jimmy since his school days."
"I remember Miss Clynesworth," suggested Bridget.
"His sister--or, rather, his half-sister. She might be his mother by the way she tries to look after him."
"Does he require a lot of looking after?" asked Bridget.
"Oh, I don't know," said Carrissima. "He is one of those men who somehow give you the impression they could do wonderful things, and if they would. He is immensely rich and nice-looking, as you say, and people do their best to spoil him. I won't insist that they have succeeded. Anyhow, he is immensely good to Sybil. Her father was a physician, and she lost her mother when she was a small child. When she was about ten Doctor Clynesworth married again. His second wife was very wealthy, and, to judge by her portrait at Upper Grosvenor Street, she must have been a beautiful woman. All her money went to her only son--Jimmy, but Doctor Clynesworth had very little to leave to Sybil. Jimmy insisted that she should continue to live at the house in which her father had practised, and he is immensely fond of her although they are about as different as any two persons can possibly be. Should you," asked Carrissima, "like me to ask her to come and see you?"
"Do you think she would?" said Bridget, returning the photograph to the table.
"I am certain she would be delighted, especially if I explain that you have no one to chaperon you," replied Carrissima, whereupon Bridget smiled as if she were quite convinced of her ability to take care of herself. On saying "Good-bye" Carrissima made a point of urging her to come to Grandison Square as often as she felt inclined, and from that time forth she regarded Miss Rosser with curiously mingled sensations.
While it proved difficult to refrain from liking the girl, with her frank joyousness, her youthful zest in life, the possession of such qualities furnished an additional excuse for that jealousy which still dominated Carrissima's waking thoughts. Without forming any definite design, the idea certainly occurred to her that Mark might come to occupy a smaller space in Bridget's sphere of things, if only she knew a few more of his kind.
The following afternoon Carrissima, according to her promise, went to Upper Grosvenor Street, where lived Sybil Clynesworth and, when he pleased, Jimmy. He had, however, a country house at Atlinghurst, and when he stayed in London sometimes preferred a room at one of his clubs, to that which his sister always kept in readiness.
On reaching the house Carrissima was disappointed to hear that Sybil had gone away the previous morning.
"When do you expect her back?" asked Carrissima.
"I have no idea," said the butler; "but Mr. Clynesworth might know."
"Mr. Clynesworth is in London then?" cried