The Punishment of a Vixen

CHAPTER ONE 1903-2

The woman gave a little laugh.

“How theatrical you are and why do men always say the same things? I find your vocabulary very limited.”

“You are mocking at me, you are trying to make me more unhappy than I am already. How can you be so cruel – so unkind?”

Again the woman laughed.

“Complaints – always complaints! I cannot think why men are never satisfied.”

“Do not keep on talking about men,” David said savagely. Tyrone Strome knew now that it was his nephew, David Merrill, who was speaking.

“I am not concerned with what you think about other men, but what you feel about me. I love you, Nevada. I want you to marry me. I have asked you often enough and if you continue to laugh at me and hold me up as a figure of fun I shall do something desperate!”

“You are play-acting, David. You really would make your fortune on the stage! And what would this desperate act be? I am curious.”

There was silence for a moment. Then David Merrill said solemnly,

“If you want to know the truth, I have considered shooting myself.”

His companion went into a peal of laughter.

“How banal! I thought at least you would think of something original! Shooting themselves is what all my lovelorn swains threaten, but they never do it!”

“One day you will get a shock.”

“Not a shock – a surprise! It might be quite interesting to see a dead body – I have never seen one.”

“Nevada! Will you not talk like that? I love you! How often must I tell you so? I love you desperately! I cannot sleep for thinking of you. Say you will marry me! I swear I will make you happy.”

“If you want the truth, I think you would make me very unhappy,” Nevada replied. “Quite frankly, David, I have no intention of saddling myself with a husband who is nothing but a hysterical boy.”

“I am a man and if you talk to me like that I will show you just how much of a man I am.”

He made a movement towards her.

“Do not dare to touch me!”

The words were almost a snarl and she continued,

“You know I will not let anyone touch me. In fact I despise you because the love you offer me is not worth having!”

“What do you mean by that?” David asked.

“You are weak and brainless or else you would find something better to do with your life than trying to end it. If I ever marry, which is most unlikely, let me tell you it will be with a man who can stand on his own two feet – a man who will take what he wants of life and not collapse at every setback.”

“You think that is what I am doing?” David Merrill asked savagely.

“I think you are young, inexperienced – and a bore!” “But I love you!”

“It is the sort of love I have no use for.”

“You seemed fond enough of me once.”

“That was before I knew you well. Have you ever asked yourself what you have to offer a woman – besides your title of course?”

There was no doubt that Nevada meant to be nasty.

“If that is what you feel about me, then there is nothing more to be said,” David answered.

“Nothing,” Nevada agreed, “and so in future leave me alone. Find someone else to whine to. Some women like yapping lapdogs.”

She walked away as she spoke and Tyrone Strome, listening from the balcony, heard the sound of her high heels on the paved path.

He leaned a little further over the balcony and now he could see his nephew standing below, his face silhouetted against the darkness of a cypress tree.

He was staring out to sea apparently in despair. Then, as he watched, Tyrone Strome saw him take something from his pocket.

With the instinct of a man who senses danger, he moved quickly, put his leg over the balcony, let himself down by the arms and dropped to the ground.

When he reached his nephew, David Merrill was staring at him in astonishment and holding a revolver in his hand. Tyrone Strome walked towards him.

“Hello, David,” he said. “I seem to have arrived at a somewhat inopportune moment.”

“Uncle Tyrone!” David managed to exclaim.

“In person!” Tyrone Strome replied lightly.

Reaching out, he took the revolver from his nephew’s hand and slipped it into the pocket of his trousers.

“I am afraid I could not help eavesdropping,” he said quietly, “but to have announced my presence might have proved embarrassing.”

David Merrill sat down on a garden chair and put his head in his hands.

“What am I to do, Uncle Tyrone?” he asked. “She is driving me mad!”

“So I gathered.”

Tyrone Strome took a chair near his nephew’s and after a moment he said,

“You don’t want to listen to the usual platitudes and I have no intention of uttering them. Shall I instead suggest an alternative to staying here and being unhappy?”

“What else can I do?” David Merrill asked miserably. “She seemed to like me at first, then suddenly found every other man more interesting than me. I love her and I can think of nothing else. If she will not marry me, I might just as well be dead!”

“I said I had an alternative suggestion. Would you listen to it?”

“I suppose so.”

David’s tone was ungracious.

“I was in Paris last night,” Tyrone Strome said. “When I arrived at the Ritz, I found three friends I have known for a long time who were just going off to Africa on a big game safari. They asked me to join them as there had originally been four in the party, but someone had dropped out.”

He realised that his nephew was attending to him as he went on, “They intend not only to shoot, but also to explore parts of Central Africa about which very little is known.”

He paused before he went on,

“Of course I realise that sort of thing may not interest you, but I promise you my friends are extremely charming, good shots and experienced travellers.”

“Are you suggesting that I should go with them?” David asked in a dull voice.

“Why not?” Tyrone Strome asked. “The alternative is, of course, to stay here and make yourself more miserable by trying to persuade a woman who obviously has no interest in you to change her mind. Something I think you know in your heart she is unlikely to do.”

What he had heard of the conversation made Tyrone Strome think that Nevada, whoever she might be, was a most unpleasant young woman whom his nephew would do well to avoid.

But he was far too tactful and too sensitive to other people’s feelings to say anything disparaging about the object of David’s affections.

“Do you think that if I went with your friends Nevada would miss me?” David asked after a moment.

“I think all women miss an admirer when he is no longer there,” Tyrone Strome said cautiously, “and I think, too, David, you would find your outlook on life would, after a journey of that sort, alter considerably.”

“You are trying to say I should forget Nevada. That is something which will not happen,” David said sharply.

“I was not suggesting anything of the sort,” his uncle replied. “What I think is that you would become a much more interesting person. It is a cliché to say that travel broadens the mind because it depends very much on the sort of travelling you do, but I can assure you Africa is a place of hidden possibilities and as yet undiscovered knowledge.”

“I know that,” David murmured.

“It would not interest you, of course,” Tyrone Strome continued, “but the National Geographical Society consider that men who make that sort of journey are not only pioneers but heroes!”

“If I went,” David said, almost as if he spoke to himself, “Nevada would realise I am not as gutless as she thinks.”

There was a silence and after a moment Tyrone Strome said,

“There is only one difficulty.”

“What is that?”

“You would have to leave tomorrow! I could wire my friends that you are coming, but I am sure I am not mistaken in thinking that the ship they are sailing in from Marseilles will leave late tomorrow night.”

There was silence, a long silence, before David replied loudly,

“I will go! Dammit, Uncle Tyrone, I will go! That will show Nevada, if nothing else, that I am not there only to be played with.”

“I am sure you have made a wise choice, David.” His nephew jumped to his feet.

“You can tell me what clothes I require.”

“Quite easily and I have some guns aboard my yacht that you will find very useful.”

“You will lend them to me? That is very kind of you, Uncle Tyrone.”

There was a note of excitement in David’s voice which his uncle did not miss.

Then in a different tone he said, “Mother! What will she say?”

“I suggest you leave your mother to me,” Tyrone Strome replied. “Don’t say anything to her until I have talked to her and incidentally I think, as her guest, I should go and find her now. We can do so together if you will allow me to fetch my coat.”

“I will get it for you,” David Merrill said. “It’s in your room?”

“You will find it on the chair,” his uncle answered. David started towards the chalet and then he paused.

“By the way, Uncle Tyrone, that was pretty agile the way you dropped from the balcony. I would think twice about doing that myself.”

“And, of course, it is surprising in your decrepit old uncle,” Tyrone Strome remarked with a note of amusement in his voice.

“I did not say that.”

“But I am sure you thought it. Never mind. Fetch my coat and we will find your mother.”

*

“But, Tyrone, is it safe for David to go off to Africa with these men?”

“He has to grow up, Helene,” her brother answered, “and from what I have heard he is taking what I imagine is his first love affair very seriously.”

Helene Merrill sighed.

At forty-five she was still very beautiful and there were several men beseeching her to marry again, only to be refused because, as her brother knew, she was so devoted to her only son.

“Nevada van Arden is very lovely,” she sighed. “One can understand David and quite a number of other young men losing their heads over her.”

“She sounded from what I heard of her conversation with David, one of the most unpleasant examples of heartless and frivolous modernity I have encountered for some time,” Tyrone Strome replied.

His sister looked startled.

“I suppose you think that because you have not seen her.” “What had happened to her, by the way, when I joined your party?”

“She rushed off in a car with several neighbours. I did not approve, but she did not exactly ask my permission.”

“In spite of the fact that she is staying in your house? Extraordinarily bad manners, if nothing else.”

Lady Merrill smiled.

“You are being very old-fashioned, Tyrone. American girls like Nevada have an independence which is denied their poor English counterparts.”

“You forget I know nothing about her.”

“Then let me tell you that Nevada van Arden is one of the richest heiresses in America.”

“I realise that she is American and with all that money she has naturally been excessively spoilt.”

“I am afraid that’s true,” Lady Merrill said, “but her mother, who was at school with me, was one of the sweetest and gentlest people I have ever known. Elizabeth was the daughter of the Earl of Fenbridge and she married Clint van Arden a year after her debut. I believe she was very happy.”

Tyrone Strome was listening with a somewhat cynical smile on his lips, as his sister continued,

“We used to write to each other, although it is always difficult to keep up a friendship with a person on the other side of the Atlantic. Then, when Nevada was eight or nine, Elizabeth died and Clint van Arden was, I believe, broken-hearted.”

“Who told you that?”

“Oh, a lot of my American friends,” Lady Merrill answered. “He concerned himself only with making money and I imagine had little time for his only child.”

“You are trying to make me feel sorry for her,” Tyrone Strome said accusingly, “but quite frankly, Helene, pity is the last thing I would offer her.”

“I think she would be insulted if you did,” Lady Merrill replied. “She is very sure of herself, quite convinced that the world is there for her to walk on. But the thing is that she does not walk on ordinary soil but on hearts.”

She saw the expression of contempt in her brother’s eyes and went on,

“Wait until you see her. When you do so, you will understand why my poor David and other young men like him have not a chance.”

Lady Merrill paused, then said with a throb in her voice, “Oh, Tyrone, I have been so worried about him.” “I can understand that,” her brother replied.