5
All this happened on a Wednesday, and Fanny wouldn't be back beforeSaturday. He had three whole days to be alone with Barbara.
He had thought that no punishment could be worse than that, but as the three days passed and Barbara continued to behave as though nothing had happened, he got used to it. It was on a Friday night, as he lay awake, reviewing for the hundredth time the situation, that his conscience pointed out to him how he really stood. There was a worse punishment than Barbara's knowing.
If Fanny knew—
There were all sorts of ways in which she might get to know. Barbara might tell her. The two were as thick as thieves. And if the child turned jealous and hysterical—She had never liked Elise. Or she might tell Ralph Bevan and he might tell Fanny, or he might tell somebody who would tell her. There were always plenty of people about who considered it their duty to report these things.
Of course, if he threw himself on Barbara's mercy, and exacted a promise from her not to tell, he knew she would keep it. But supposing all the time she hadn't seen or suspected anything? Supposing her calm manner came from a mind innocent of all seeing and suspecting? Then he would have given himself away for nothing.
Besides, even if Barbara never said anything, there was Elise. Noknowing what Elise might do or say in her vulgar fury. She might tellToby or Markham, and the two might make themselves damnably unpleasant.The story would be all over the county in no time.
And there were the servants. Supposing one of the women took it into her head to give notice on account of "goings on?"
He couldn't live in peace so long as all or any of these things were possible.
The only thing was to be beforehand with Barbara and Bevan and Elise and Toby and Markham and the servants; to tell Fanny himself before any of them could get in first. The more he thought about it the more he was persuaded that this was the only right, the only straightforward and manly thing to do; at the same time it occurred to him that by suppressing a few unimportant details he could really give a very satisfactory account of the whole affair. It would not be necessary, for instance, to tell Fanny what his intentions had been, if indeed he had ever had any. For, as he went again and again over the whole stupid business, his intentions—those that related to the little house in Cheltenham or St. John's Wood—tended to sink back into the dream state from which they had arisen, clearing his conscience more and more from any actual offence. He had, in fact, nothing to account for but his attitude, the rather compromising attitude in which Barbara had found him. And that could be very easily explained away. Fanny was not one of those exacting, jealous women; she would be ready to accept a reasonable explanation of anything. And you could always appease her by a little attention.
So on Friday afternoon Mr. Waddington himself drove the car down to Wyck Station and met Fanny on the platform. He made tea for her himself and waited on her, moving assiduously, and smiling an affectionate yet rather conscious smile. He was impelled to these acts spontaneously, because of that gentleness and tenderness towards Fanny which the bare thought of Elise was always enough to inspire him with.
Thus, by sticking close to Fanny all the evening he contrived that Barbara should have no opportunity of saying anything to her. And in the last hour before bed-time, when they were alone together in the drawing-room, he began.
He closed the door carefully behind Barbara and came back to his place, scowling like one overpowered by anxious thought. He exaggerated this expression on purpose, so that Fanny should notice it and give him his opening, which she did.
"Well, old thing, what areyoulooking so glum about?"
"Do I look glum?"
"Dismal. What is it?"
He stood upright before the chinmeypiece, his conscience sustained by this posture of rectitude.
"I'm not quite easy about Barbara," he said.
"Barbara? What on earth hasshebeen doing?"
"She's been doing nothing. It's—it's rather what she may do if you don't stop her."
"I don't want to stop her," said Fanny, "if you're thinking of RalphBevan."
"Ralph Bevan? I certainly am not thinking of him. Neither is she."
"Well then, what?"
"I was thinking of myself."
"My dear, you surely don't imagine that Barbara's thinking of you?"
"Not—not in the way you imply. The fact is, I was let in for a—a rather unpleasant scene the other day with Mrs. Levitt."
"I always thought," said Fanny, "that woman would let you in for something. Well?"
"Well, I hardly know how to tell you about it, my dear."
"Why, was it as bad as all that? Perhaps I'd better not know."
"I want you to know. I'm trying to tell you—because of Barbara."
"I can't see where Barbara comes in."
"She came into the library while it was happening—"
Fanny laughed and it disconcerted him.
"While what was happening?" she said. "You'd better tell me straight out. I don't suppose it was anything like as bad as you think it was."
"I'm only afraid of what Barbara might think."
"Oh, you can trust Barbara not to think things. She never does."
Dear Fanny. He would have found his job of explaining atrociously difficult with any other woman. Any other woman would have entangled him tighter and tighter; but he could see that Fanny was trying to get it straight, to help him out with all his honour and self-respect and dignity intact. Every turn she gave to the conversation favoured him.
"My dear, I'm afraid she saw something that I must say was open to misinterpretation. It wasn't my fault, but—"
No. The better he remembered it the more clearly he saw it was Elise's fault, not his. And he could see that Fanny thought it was Elise's fault. This suggested the next step in the course that was only not perjury because it was so purely instinctive, the subterfuge of terrified vanity. It seemed to him that he had no plan; that he followed Fanny.
"Upon my word I'd tell you straight out, Fanny, only I don't like to give the poor woman away."
"Mrs. Levitt?" said Fanny. "You needn't mind. You may be quite sure that she'll giveyouaway if you don't."
She was giving him a clear lead.
When he began he had really had some thoughts of owning, somewhere about this point, that he had lost his head; but when it came to the point he saw that this admission was unnecessarily quixotic, and that he would be far safer if he suggested that Elise had lost hers. In fact, it was Fanny who had suggested it in the first place. It might not be altogether a fair imputation, but, hang it all, it was the only one that would really appease Fanny, and he had Fanny to think of and not Elise. He owed it her. For her sake he must give up the personal luxury of truthtelling. The thing would go no further with Fanny, and it was only what Fanny had believed herself in any case and always would believe. Elise would be no worse off as far as Fanny was concerned. So he fairly let himself go.
"There's no knowing what she may do," he said. "She was in a thoroughly hysterical state. She'd come to me with her usual troubles—not able to pay her rent, and so on—and in talking she became very much upset and er—er—lost her head and took me completely by surprise."
"That," he thought, "she certainly did."
"You mean you lost yours too?" said Fanny mildly.
"I did nothing of the sort. But I was rather alarmed. Before you could say 'knife' she'd gone off into a violent fit of hysterics, and I was just trying to bring her round when Barbara came in." His explanation was so much more plausible than the reality that he almost believed it himself. "I think," he said, pensively, "shemusthave seen me bending over her."
"And she didn't offer to help?"
"No; she rushed in and she rushed out again. She may not have seen anything; but in case she did, I wish, my dear, you'd explain."
"I think I'd better not," said Fanny, "in case she didn't."
"No. But it worries me every time I think of it. She came right into the room. Besides," he said, "we've got to think of Mrs. Levitt."
"Mrs. Levitt?"
"Yes. Put yourself in her place. She wouldn't like it supposed that I was making love to her. She might consider the whole thing made her look as ridiculous as it made me."
"I'd forgotten Mrs. Levitt's point of view. You rather gave me to understand that was what she wanted."
"I never said anything of the sort." Seeing that the explanation was going so well he could afford to be magnanimous.
"I must have imagined it," said Fanny. "She recovered, I suppose, and you got rid of her?"
"Yes, I got rid of her all right."
"Well," said Fanny, gathering herself up to go to bed, "I shouldn't worry any more about it. I'll make it straight with Barbara."
She went up to Barbara's bedroom, where Barbara, still dressed, sat reading over the fire.
"Come in, you darling," Barbara said. She got up and crouched on the hearthrug, leaving her chair for Fanny.
Fanny came in and sat down.
"Barbara," she said, "what's all this about Horatio and Mrs. Levitt?"
"I don't know," said Barbara flatly, with sudden presence of mind.
"I said you didn't. But the poor old thing goes on and on about it. He thinks you saw something the other day. Something you didn't understand. Did you?"
Barbara said nothing. She stared away from Fanny.
"Did you?"
"Of course I didn't."
"Of course you did. He says you must have seen. And it's worrying him no end."
"I saw something. But he needn't worry. I understood all right"
"What did you see?"
"Nothing. Nothing that mattered."
"It matters most awfully to me."
"I don't think it need," said Barbara.
"But itdoes. In a sense I don't mind what he does, and in a sense I do. I still care enough for that."
"I don't think there was anything you need mind so awfully."
"Yes, but therewassomething. He said there was. He was afraid you'd misunderstand it. He said he was bending over her when you came in."
"Well, hewasbending a bit."
"What wasshedoing?"
"She was laughing."
"In hysterics?"
She saw it all.
"I suppose you might call it hysterics. They weren't nice hysterics, though. She isn't a nice woman."
"No. But he was making love to her, and she was laughing at him. She was nice enough for that."
"If that's nice."
"Why, what else could the poor woman do if she's honest?"
"Oh, she's honest enough inthatway," said Barbara.
"And he couldn't see it. He's so intent on his own beautiful Postlethwaite nose, he can't see anything that goes on under it…. Still, honest or not honest, she's a beast, Barbara. When they'd been such pals and he'd helped her, to have gone and rounded on the poor thing like that. She might just as well have pulled his Postlethwaite nose. It couldn't have hurt more."
"Oh, I think he'll get over it."
"I mean it couldn't have hurtmemore."
"Sheisa beast," said Barbara. "I bet you anything you like it's her fault. She drove him to it."
"No, Barbara, it wasmyfault.Idrove him. I'm always laughing at him, and he can't bear being laughed at. It makes him feel all stuffy and middle-aged. He only goes in for passion because it makes him feel young."
"It isn't really passion," said Barbara.
"No, you wise thing, it isn't. If it was I could forgive him. I could forgive it if he really felt young. It's this ghastly affectation I can't stand…. But it's my fault, Barbara, my fault. I should have kept him young…."
They sat silent, Barbara at Fanny's feet. Presently Fanny drew the girl's head down into her lap.
"You'll never be old, Barbara," she said. "And Ralph won't."
"What made you think of Ralph, Fanny?"
"Horatio, of course."
1
If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it was bound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was the redistributing centre for the news of the district.
Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting the White House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in the place; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her losses at bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had been thinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even a definite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was now paying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs. Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required some explanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother, old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. Dick Benham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There had been "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able to repeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they had something to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showed conclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nice woman."
"They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear, won't have her in the house."
But all this was trivial compared with the correspondence that now passed between Mr. Waddington and Elise. He admitted now that old Corbett had known what he was talking about when he had warned him that he would be landed—landed, if he didn't take care, to the tune of five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His letters to Mrs. Levitt, dictated to Barbara Madden, revealed the care he had to take. From motives which appeared to him chivalrous he had refrained from showing Barbara Mrs. Levitt's letters to him. He left her to gather their crude substance from his admirable replies.
"'I am afraid I must advise you to give up the scheme if it depends on my co-operation. I thought I had defined my position—'
"Defined my position is good, I think."
"It sounds good," said Barbara.
"'That position remains what it was. And as your exceptionally fine intelligence cannot fail to understand it, no more need be said.
"'At least I hope it is so. I should be sorry if our very pleasant relations terminated in disappointment—'"
For one instant she could see him smile, feeling voluptuously the sharp, bright edge of his word before it cut him. He drew back, scowling above a sudden sombre flush of memory.
"Disappointment—" said Barbara, giving him his cue.
"Disappointment is not quite the word. I want something—something more chivalrous."
His eyes turned away from her, pretending to look for it.
"Ah—now I have it. 'Very pleasant relations terminated on a note—on a note of—on an unexpected note.
"'With kind regards, very sincerely yours,
"You will see, Barbara, that I am saying precisely the same thing, but saying it inoffensively, as a gentleman should."
Forty-eight hours later he dictated:
"'No: I have no suggestion to make except that you curtail your very considerable expenditure. For the rest, believe me it is as disagreeable for me to be obliged to refuse your request as I am sure it must be for you to make it—'
"H'm. Rest—request. That won't do. 'As disagreeable for me to have to refuse as it must be for you to ask.'
"Simpler, that. Never use an elaborate phrase where a simple one will do.
"'You are good enough to say I have done so much for you in the past. I have done what I could; but you will pardon me if I say there is a limit beyond which I cannot go.
"'Sincerely yours,
"I've sent her a cheque for fifty-five pounds already. That ought to have settled her."
"Settled her? You don't mean to say you sent her acheque?"
"I did."
"You oughtn't to have sent her anything at all."
"But I'd promised it, Barbara—"
"I don't care. You ought to have waited."
"I wanted to close the account and have done with her."
"That isn't the way to close it, sending cheques. That cheque will have to go through Parson's Bank. Supposing Toby sees it?"
"What if he does?"
"He might object. He might even make a row about it."
"What could I do? I had to pay her."
"You could have made the cheque payable to me. It would have passed as my quarter's salary. I could have cashed it and you could have given her notes."
"And if Toby remembered their numbers?"
"You could have changed them for ten shilling notes in Cheltenham."
"All these elaborate precautions!"
"You can't be too precautions when you're dealing with a woman like that…. Is this all you've given her?"
"All?"
"Yes. Did you ever give her anything any other time?"
"Well—possibly—from time to time—"
"Have you any idea of the total amount?"
"I can't say off-hand. And I can't see what it has to do with it."
"It has everything to do with it. Can you find out?"
"Certainly, if I look up my old cheque books."
"You'd better do that now."
He turned, gloomily, to his writing-table. The cheque books for the current year and the year before it betrayed various small loans to Mrs. Levitt, amounting in all to a hundred and fifty pounds odd.
"Oh, dear," said Barbara, "all that's down against you. Still—it's all ante-Wednesday. What a pity you didn't pay her that fifty-five before your interview."
"How do you mean?"
"It's pretty certain she's misinterpreted your paying it now so soon."
"After the interview? Do you really think she misunderstood me,Barbara?"
"I think she wants you to think she did."
"You think she's trying—trying—to—"
"To sell you her silence? Yes, I do."
"Good God! I never thought of that. Blackmail."
"I don't suppose for a minute she thinks she's blackmailing you. She's just trying it on…. And she may raise her price, too. She won't rest till she's got that five hundred out of you."
Mrs. Levitt's next communication would appear to have supportedBarbara's suspicion, for Mr. Waddington was compelled to answer it thus:
"You say you were 'right then' and that my 'promises' were 'conditional'"—
(You could tell where the inverted commas came by the biting clip of his tone.)
—"I fail to appreciate the point of this allusion. I cannot imagine what conditions you refer to. I made none. As for promises, I am not responsible for the somewhat restricted interpretation you see fit to put on a friend's general expressions of goodwill.
"Yours truly,
His last letter, a day later, never got as far as its signature.
"My decision will not be affected by the contingency you suggest. You are at perfect liberty to say what you like. Nobody will believe you."
"That, I think, is as far as I can go."
"Much too far," said Barbara.
"And that's taking her too seriously."
"Much. You mustn't send that letter."
"Why not?"
"Because it gives you away."
"Gives me away? It seems to me most guarded."
"It isn't. It implies that therearethings she might say. Even if you don't mind her saying them you mustn't put it in writing."
"Ah-h. There's something in that. Of course, I could threaten her with a lawyer's letter. But somehow—The fact is, Barbara, if you're a decent man you're handicapped in dealing with a lady. Delicacy. There are things that could be said. Material things—most material to the case. But I can't say them."
"No. You can't say them. But I can. I think I could stop the whole thing in five minutes, if I saw Mrs. Levitt. Will you leave it to me?"
"Come—I don't know—"
"Why not? I assure you it'll be all right."
"Well. Perhaps. It's a matter of business. A pure matter of business."
"It certainly is that. There's no reason why you shouldn't hand it over to your secretary."
He hesitated. He was still afraid of what Elise might say to Barbara.
"You will understand that she is in a very unbalanced state. Excitable. A woman in that state is apt to put interpretations on the most innocent—er—acts."
"She won't be able to put on any after I've done with her. If it comes to that, I can put on interpretations too."
Mr. Waddington then, at Barbara's dictation, wrote a short note to Mrs.Levitt inviting her to call and see him that afternoon at three o'clock.
2
At three o'clock Barbara was ready for her.
She had assumed for the occasion her War Office manner, that firm sweetness with which she used to stand between importunate interviewers and her chief. It had made her the joy of her department.
"Mr. Waddington is extremely sorry he is not able to see you himself. He is engaged with his agent at the moment."
Mr. Waddington had, indeed, created that engagement.
"Engaged? But I have an appointment."
"Yes. He's very sorry. He said if there was anything I could do for you—"
"Thank you, Miss Madden. If it's all the same to you, I'd much rather see Mr. Waddington himself. I can wait."
"I wouldn't advise you to. I'm afraid he may be a long time. He has some very important business on hand just now."
"Mybusiness," said Mrs. Levitt, "is very important."
"Oh, if it's only business," Barbara said, "I think we can settle it at once. I've had most of the correspondence in my hands and I think I know all the circumstances."
"You have had the correspondence in your hands?"
"Well, you see, I'm Mr. Waddington's secretary. That's what I'm here for."
"I didn't know he trusted his private business to his secretary."
"He's obliged to. He has so much of it. You surely don't expect him to copy out his own letters?"
"I don't expect him to hand over my letters to other people to read."
"I haven't read your letters, Mrs. Levitt. I've merely taken down his answers to copy out and file for reference."
"Then, my dear Miss Madden, you don't know all the circumstances."
"At any rate, I can tell you what Mr. Waddington intends to do and what he doesn't. You want to see him, I suppose, about the loan for the investment?"
Mrs. Levitt was too profoundly disconcerted to reply.
Barbara went on in her firm sweetness. "I know he's very sorry not to be able to do more, but, as you know, he did not advise the investment and he can't possibly advance anything for it beyond the fifty pounds he has already paid you."
"Since you know so much about it," said Mrs. Levitt with a certain calm, subdued truculence, "you may as well know everything. You are quite mistaken in supposing that Mr. Waddington did not advise the investment. On the contrary, it was on his representations that I decided to invest. And it was on the strength of the security he offered that my solicitors advanced me the money. He is responsible for the whole business; he has made me enter into engagements that I cannot meet without him, and when I ask him to fulfil his pledges he lets me down."
"I don't think Mr. Waddington knows that your solicitors advanced the money. There is no reference to them in the correspondence."
"I think, if you'll look through yourfiles, or if Mr. Waddington will look through his, you'll find you are mistaken."
"I can tell Mr. Waddington what you've told me and let you know what he says. If you don't mind waiting a minute I can let you know now."
She sought out Mr. Waddington in his office—luckily it was situated in the kitchen wing, the one farthest from the library. She found him alone in it (the agent had gone), sitting in a hard Windsor chair. He knew that Elise couldn't pursue him into his office; it was even doubtful whether she knew where it was. He had retreated into it as into some impregnable position.
Not that he looked safe. His face sagged more than ever, as though the Postlethwaite nose had withdrawn its support from that pale flesh of funk. If it had any clear meaning at all it expressed a terrified expectation of blackmail. His very moustache and hair drooped lamentably.
"Are you disengaged?" she said.
"Yes. But for God's sake don't tell her that."
"It's all right. She knows she isn't going to see you."
"Well?"
She felt the queer, pathetic clinging of his mind to her as if it realized that she held his honour and Fanny's happiness in her hands.
"She's not going to give up that five hundred without a struggle."
"The deuce she isn't. On what grounds does she claim it?"
"She says you advised her to make a certain investment, and that you promised to lend her half the sum she wanted."
"I made no promise. I said, 'Perhaps that sum might be forthcoming.' I made it very clear that it would depend on circumstances."
"On circumstances that she understood—knew about?"
"Er—on circumstances that—No. She didn't know about them."
"Still, you made conditions?"
"No. I made—a mental reservation."
"She seems to be aware of the circumstances that influenced you. She thinks you've gone back on your word."
"I have gone back on nothing. My word's sacred. The woman lies."
"She sticks to it that the promise was made, that on the strength of it she invested a certain sum of money through her solicitors, that they advanced the money on that security and you advised the investment."
"I did not advise it. I advised her to give it up. I wrote to her. You took down the letter…. No, you didn't. I copied that one myself."
"Have you got it? I'd better show it her."
"Yes. It's—it's—confound it, it's in my private drawer."
"Can't I find it?"
He hesitated. He didn't like the idea of anybody, even little Barbara, rummaging in his private drawer, but he had to choose the lesser of two evils, and that letter would put the matter beyond a doubt.
"Here's the key," he said, and gave it her. "It's dated October the thirtieth or thirty-first. But it's all humbug. I've reason to believe that money was never invested at all. It's all debts. She hasn't a leg to stand on. Not a leg."
"Not a stump," said Barbara. "Leave her to me."
She went back to the library. Mrs. Levitt's face lifted itself in excited questioning.
"One moment, Mrs. Levitt."
After a slightly prolonged search in Mr. Waddington's private drawer she found the letter of October tie thirty-first, and returned with it to the office. It was very short and clear:
"I cannot promise anything—it depends on circumstances. But if you sent me the name and address of your solicitors it might help."
"Take it," he said, "and show it her."
3
Barbara went back again to the library and her final battle with Elise.
This time she had armed herself with the cheque books.
Mrs. Levitt began, "Well—?"
"Mr. Waddington says he is very sorry if there's any misunderstanding. I don't know whether you remember getting this letter from him?"
Mrs. Levitt blinked hard as she read the letter.
"Of course I remember."
"You see that he could hardly have stated his position more clearly."
"But—this letter is dated October the thirty-first. The promise I refer to was made long after that."
"It doesn't appear so from his letters—all that I've taken down. If you can show me anything in writing—"
"Writing? Mr. Waddington is a gentleman and he was my friend. I never dreamed of pinning him down to promises in writing. I thought his word was enough. I never dreamed of his going back on it. And after compromising me the way he's done."
Barbara's eyebrows lifted delicately, innocently. "Hashe compromised you?"
"He has."
"How?"
"Never mind how. Quite enough to start all sorts of unpleasant stories."
"You shouldn't listen to them. People will tell stories without anything to start them."
"That doesn't make them any less unpleasant. I should have thought the very least Mr. Waddington could do—"
"Would be to pay you compensation?"
"There can be no compensation in a case of this sort, Miss Madden. I'm not talking about compensation. Mr. Waddington must realize that he cannot compromise me without compromising himself."
"I should think he would realize it, you know."
"Then he ought to realize that he is not exactly in a position to repudiate his engagements."
"Do you consider thatyouare in a position—exactly—to hold him to engagements he never entered into?"
"I've told you already that he has let me in for engagements that I cannot meet if he goes back on his word."
"I see. And you want to make it unpleasant for him. As unpleasant as you possibly can?"
"I can make it even more unpleasant for him, Miss Madden, than it is for me."
"What, after all the compromising?"
"I think so. If, for instance, I chose to tell somebody what happened the other day, what you saw yourself."
"DidI see anything?"
"You can't deny that you saw something you were not meant to see."
"You mean Wednesday afternoon? Well, if Mr. Waddington chose to say thatI saw you in a bad fit of hysterics I shouldn't denythat."
"I see. You're well posted, Miss Madden."
"I am, rather. But supposing you told everybody in the place he was caught making love to you, what good would it do you?"
"Excuse me, we're not talking about the good it would do me, but the harm it would do him."
"Same thing," said Barbara. "Supposing you told everybody and nobody believed you?"
"Everybody will believe me. You forget that those stories have been going about long before Wednesday."
"All the better for Mr. Waddington and all the worse for you. You were compromised before Wednesday. Then why, if you didn't like being compromised, did you consent to come to tea alone with him when his wife was away?"
"I came on business,as you know."
"You came to borrow money from a man who had compromised you? If you're so careful of your reputation I should have thought that would have been the last thing you'd have done."
"You're forgetting my friendship with Mr. Waddington."
"You said business just now. Friendship or business, or businessandfriendship, I don't think you're making out a very good case for yourself, Mrs. Levitt. But supposing you did make it out, and supposing Mr. Waddington did lose his head andwasmaking love to you on Wednesday, do you imagine people here are going to takeyourpart againsthim?"
"He's not so popular in Wyck as all that."
"He mayn't be, but his caste is. Immensely popular with the county, which I suppose is all you care about. You must remember, Mrs. Levitt, that he's Mr. Waddington of Wyck; you're not fighting one Mr. Waddington, but three hundred years of Waddingtons. You're up against all his ancestors."
"I don't carethatfor his ancestors," said Mrs. Levitt with a gesture of the thumb.
"You may not. I certainly don't. But other people do. Major Markham, theHawtreys, the Thurstons, even the Corbetts, do you suppose they're allgoing to turn against him because he lost his head for a minute on aWednesday? Ten to one they'll all think, andsay, you made him do it."
"I made him? Preposterous!"
"Not so preposterous as you imagine. You must make allowances for people's prejudices. If you wanted to stand clear you shouldn't have taken all that money from him."
"All that money indeed! A loan, a mere temporary loan, for an investment he recommended."
"Not only that loan, but—" Barbara produced the cheque books with their damning counterfoils. "Look here—twenty-five pounds on the thirty-first of January. And here—October last year, and July, and January before that—More than a hundred and fifty altogether. How are you going to account for that?
"And who's going to believe that Mr. Waddington paid all that for nothing, if some particularly nasty person gets up and says he didn't? You see what a horrible position you'd be in, don't you?"
Mrs. Levitt didn't answer. Her face thickened slightly with a dreadful flush. Her nerve was going.
Barbara watched it go. She followed up her advantage. "And supposing I were to tell everybody—his friend, Major Markham, say—that you were pressing him for that five hundred, immediatelyafterthe affair of Wednesday, on threats of exposure, wouldn't that look very like blackmail?"
"Blackmail?Really, Miss Madden—"
"I don't suppose youmeanit for blackmail; I'm only pointing out what it'll look like. It won't lookwell…. Much better face the facts. Youcan'tdo Mr. Waddington any real harm, short of forcing his wife to get a separation."
There was a black gleam in Mrs. Levitt's eyes. "Precisely. And supposing—since wearesupposing—I told Mrs. Waddington of his behaviour?"
"Too late. Mr. Waddington has told her himself."
"His own version."
"Certainly, his own version."
"And supposing I gave mine?"
"Do. Whatever you say it'll be your word against ours and she won't believe you. If she did she'd think it was all your fault…. And remember, I have the evidence for your attempts at blackmail.
"I don't think," said Barbara, going to the door and opening it, "there's anything more to be said."
Mrs. Levitt walked out with her agitated waddle. Barbara followed her amicably to the front door. There Elise made her last stand.
"Goodafternoon, Miss Madden. I congratulate Mr. Waddington—on the partnership."
Barbara rushed to the relief of the besieged in his office redoubt.
"It's all over!" she shouted at him joyously.
Mr. Waddington did not answer all at once. He was still sitting in his uneasy Windsor chair, absorbed in meditation. He had brought out a little note from his inmost pocket and as he looked at it he smiled.
It began thus, and its date was the Saturday following that dreadfulWednesday:
"After the way you have stood by me and helped me in the past, I cannot believe that it is all over, and that I can come to you, my generous friend, and be repulsed—"
He looked up. "How did she behave, Barbara?" "Oh—she wanted to bite—to bite badly; but I drew all her teeth, very gently, one by one." Teeth. Elise's teeth—drawn by Barbara.
He tore the note into little bits, and, as he watched them flutter into the waste-paper basket, he sighed. He rose heavily.
"Let's go and tell Fanny all about it," said Barbara.
1
"I hope you realize, Horatio, that it was Barbara who got you out of that mess?"
"Barbara showed a great deal of intelligence; but you must give me credit for some tact and discretion of my own," Mr. Waddington said as he left the drawing-room.
"Washe tactful and discreet?"
"His first letters," said Barbara, "were masterpieces of tact and discretion. Before he saw the danger. Afterwards I think his nerve may have gone a bit. Whose wouldn't?"
"Itwasclever of you, Barbara. All the same, it must have been rather awful, going for her like that."
"Yes."
Now that it was all over Barbara saw that it had been awful; rather like a dog-fight. She had been going round and round, rolling with Mrs. Levitt in the mud; so much mud that for purposes of sheer cleanliness it hardly seemed to matter which of them was top dog at the finish. All she could see was that it had to be done and there wasn't anybody else to do it.
"You see," Fanny went on, "she had a sort of case. Hewasmaking love to her and she didn't like it. It doesn't seem quite fair to turn on her after that."
"She did all the turning. I wouldn't have said a thing if she hadn't tried to put the screw on. Somebody had got to stop it."
"Yes," Fanny said. "Yes. Still, I wish we could have let her go in peace."
"There wasn't any peace for her to go in; and she wouldn't have gone. She'd have been here now, with his poor thumb in her screw. After all, Fanny, I only pointed out how beastly it would be for her if she didn't go. And I only did that because he was your husband, and it was your thumb, really."
"Yes, darling, yes; I know what you did it for. … Oh, I wish she wasn't so horribly badly off."
"So do I, then it wouldn't have happened. But how can you be such an angel to her, Fanny?"
"I'm not. I'm only decent. I hate using our position to break her poor back. Telling her we're Waddingtons of Wyck and she's only Mrs. Levitt."
"It was the handiest weapon. And you didn't use it.I'mnot a Waddington of Wyck. Besides, it's true; she can't blackmail him in his own county. You don't seem to realize how horrid she was, and how jolly dangerous."
"No," Fanny said, "I don't realize people's horridness. As for danger, I don't want to disparage your performance, Barbara, but she seems to me to have been an easy prey."
"Youaredisparaging me," said Barbara.
"I'm not. I only don't like to think of you enjoying that nasty scrap."
"I only enjoyed it on your account."
"And I oughtn't to grudge you your enjoyment when we reap the benefit. I don't know what Horatio would have done without you. I shudder to think of the mess he'd have made of it himself."
"He was making rather a mess of it," Barbara said, "when I took it on."
"Well," said Fanny, "I daresay I'm a goose. Perhaps I ought to be grateful to Mrs. Levitt. If he was on the look-out for adventures, it's just as well he hit on one that'll keep him off it for the future. She'd have been far more deadly if she'd been a nice woman. If hemustmake love."
"Only then he couldn't very well have done it," Barbara said.
"Oh, couldn't he! You never can tell what a man'll do, once he's begun," said Fanny.
2
Meanwhile Mrs. Levitt stayed on, having failed to let her house for the winter. She seemed to be acting on Barbara's advice and refraining from any malignant activity; for no report of the Waddington affair had as yet penetrated into the tea-parties and little dinners at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Punctually every Friday evening Mr. Thurston of the Elms, and either Mr. Hawtrey or young Hawtrey of Medlicott, turned up at the White House for their bridge. If Mrs. Dick Benham chose to write venomous letters about Elise Levitt to old Mrs. Markham, that was no reason why they should throw over an agreeable woman whose hospitality had made Wyck-on-the-Hill a place to live in, so long as she behaved decentlyinthe place. They kept it up till past midnight now that Mrs. Levitt had had the happy idea of serving a delicious supper at eleven. (She had paid her debts of honour with Mr. Waddington's five pounds; the fifty she reserved, in fancy, for the cost of the chickens and the trifles and the Sauterne.) In Mr. Thurston and the Hawtreys the bridge habit and the supper habit, and what Billy Hawtrey called the Levitty habit, was so strong that it overrode their sense of loyalty to Major Markham. The impression created by Mrs. Dick Benham only heightened their enjoyment in doing every Friday what Mrs. Thurston and Mrs. Hawtrey persisted in regarding as a risky thing. "There was no harm in Elise Levitt," they said.
So every Friday, after midnight, respectable householders, sleeping on either side of the White House, were wakened by the sudden opening of her door, by shrill "Good nights" called out from the threshold and answered by bass voices up the street, by the shutting of the door and the shriek of the bolt as it slid to.
And the Rector went about saying, in his genial way, that he liked Mrs. Levitt, that she was well connected, and that there was no harm in her. So long as any parishioner was a frequent attendant at church, and a regular subscriber to the coal and blanket club, and a reliable source of soup and puddings for the poor, it was hard to persuade him that there was any harm in them. Fanny Waddington said of him that if Beelzebub subscribed to his coal and blanket club he'd ask him to tea. He had a stiff face for uncharitable people; Elise was received almost ostentatiously at the rectory as a protest against scandal-mongering; and he made a point of stopping to talk to her when he met her in the street.
This might have meant the complete rehabilitation of Elise, but that the Rector's geniality was too indiscriminate, too perfunctory, too Christian, as Fanny put it, to afford any sound social protection; and, ultimately, the approval of the rectory was disastrous to Elise, letting her in, as she afterwards complained bitterly, for Miss Gregg. Meanwhile it helped her with people like Mrs. Bostock and Mrs. Cleaver and Mrs. Jackson, who wanted to be charitable and to stand well with the Rector.
Then, in the December following the Waddington affair, Wyck was astonished by the friendship that sprang up, suddenly, between Mrs. Levitt and Miss Gregg, the governess at the rectory.
There was a reason for it—there always is a reason for these things—and Mrs. Bostock named it when she named young Billy Hawtrey. Friendship with Mrs. Levitt provided Miss Gregg with, unlimited facilities for meeting Billy, who was always running over from Medlicott to the White House. Miss Gregg's passion for young Billy hung by so slender, so nervous, and so insecure a thread that it required the continual support of conversation with an experienced and sympathetic friend. Miss Gregg had never known anybody so sympathetic and so experienced as Mrs. Levitt. The first time they were alone together she had seen by Elise's face that she had some secret like her own (Miss Gregg meant Major Markham), and that she would understand. And one strict confidence leading to another, before very long Miss Gregg had captured that part of Elise's secret that related to Mr. Waddington.
It was through Miss Gregg's subsequent activities that it first became known in Wyck that Mrs. Levitt had referred to Mr. Waddington as "that horrible old man." This might have been very damaging to Mr. Waddington but that Annie Trinder, at the Manor, had told her aunt, Mrs. Trinder, that Mr. Waddington spoke of Mrs. Levitt as "that horrible woman," and had given orders that she was not to be admitted if she called. It was then felt that there might possibly be more than one side to the question.
Then, bit by bit, through the repeated indiscretions of Miss Gregg, the whole affair of Mrs. Levitt and Mr. Waddington came out. It travelled direct from Miss Gregg to the younger Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott, and finally reached Sir John Corbett by way of old Hawtrey, who had it from his wife, who didn't believe a word of it.
Sir John didn't believe a word of it, either. At any rate, that was what he said to Lady Corbett. To himself he wondered whether there wasn't "something in it." He would give a good deal to know, and he made up his mind that the next time he saw Waddington he'd get it out of him.
He saw him the very next day.
Ever since that dreadful Wednesday an uneasy mind had kept Mr. Waddington for ever calling on his neighbours. He wanted to find out from their behaviour and their faces whether they knew anything and how much they knew. He lived in perpetual fear of what that horrible woman might say or do. The memory of whathehad said and done that Wednesday no longer disturbed his complete satisfaction with himself. He couldn't think of Elise as horrible without at the same time thinking of himself as the pure and chivalrous spirit that had resisted her. Automatically he thought of himself as pure and chivalrous. And in the rare but beastly moments when he did remember what he had done and said to Elise and what Elise had done and said to him, when he felt again her hand beating him off and heard her voice crying out: "You old imbecile!" automatically he thought of her as cold. Some women were like that—cold. Deficient in natural feeling. Only an abnormal coldness could have made her repulse him as she did. She had told him to his face, in her indecent way, that love wasthemost ridiculous thing. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand how a thing that was so delightful to other women could he ridiculous to Elise; but there it was.
Absolutely abnormal, that. His vanity received immense consolation in thinking of Elise as abnormal.
His mind passed without a jolt or a jar from one consideration to its opposite. Elise was cold and he was normally and nobly passionate Elise was horrible and he was chivalrously pure. Whichever way he had it he was consoled.
But you couldn't tell in what awful light the thing might present itself to other people.
It was this doubt that drove him to Underwoods one afternoon early inJanuary, ostensibly to deliver his greetings for the New Year.
After tea Sir John lured him into his library for a smoke. The peculiar smile and twinkle at play on his fat face should have warned Mr. Waddington of what was imminent.
They puffed in an amicable silence for about two minutes before he began.
"Ever see anything of Mrs. Levitt now?"
Mr. Waddington raised his eyebrows as if surprised at this impertinence. He seemed to be debating with himself whether he would condescend to answer it or not.
"No," he said presently, "I don't."
"Taken my advice and dropped it, have you?"
"I should say, rather, it dropped itself."
"I'm glad to hear that, Waddington; I'm very glad to hear it. I always said, you know, you'd get landed if you didn't look out."
"My dear Corbett, I did look out. You don't imagine I was going to be let in more than I could help."
"Wise after the event, what?"
Mr. Waddington thought: "He's trying to pump me." He was determined not to be pumped. Corbett should not get anything out of him.
"After what event? Fanny's called several times, but she doesn't care to keep it up. Neither, to tell the honest truth, do I…. Why?"
Sir John was twinkling at him in his exasperating way.
"Why? Because, my dear fellow, the woman's going about everywhere saying she's givenyouup."
"I don't care," said Mr. Waddington, "what she says. Quite immaterial to me."
"You mayn't care, but your friends do, Waddington."
"It's very good of them. But they can save themselves the trouble."
He thought: "He isn't going to get anything out of me."
"Oh, come, you don't suppose we believe a word of it."
They looked at each other. Sir John thought: "I'll get it out of him."And Mr. Waddington thought: "I'll get it out of him."
"You might as well tell me what you're talking about," he said.
"My dear chap, it's what Mrs. Levitt's talking about. That's the point."
"Mrs. Levitt!"
"Yes. She's a dangerous woman, Waddington. I told you you were doing a risky thing taking up with her like that…. And there's Hawtrey doing the same thing, the very same thing…. But he's a middle-aged man, so I suppose he thinks he's safe. … But if he was ten years younger— Hang it all, Waddington, if I was a younger man I shouldn't feel safe. I shouldn't, really. I can't think what there is about her. There's something."
"Yes," said Mr. Waddington, "there's something."
Something. He wasn't going to let Corbett think him so middle-aged that he was impervious to its charm.
"What is it?" said Sir John. "She isn't handsome, yet she gets all the young fellows running after her. There was Markham, and Thurston, and there's young Hawtrey. It's only sober old chaps like me who don't get landed…. Upon my word, Waddington, I shouldn't blame you if youhadlost your head."
Mr. Waddington felt shaken in his determination not to let Corbett get it out of him. It was also clear that, if he did admit to having for one wild moment lost his head, Corbett would think none the worse of him. He would then be classed with Markham and young Billy, whereas if he denied it, he would only rank himself with old fossils like Corbett. And he couldn't bear it. There was such a thing as doing yourself an unnecessary injustice.
Sir John watched him hovering round the trap he had laid for him.
"Absolutely between ourselves," he said. "Didyou?"
Under Mr. Waddington's iron-grey moustache you could see the Rabelaisian smile answering the Rabelaisian twinkle. For the life of him he couldn't resist it.
"Well—between ourselves, Corbett, absolutely—to be perfectly honest, I did. Thereissomething about her…. Just for a second, you know. It didn't come to anything."
"Didn't it? She says you made violent love to her."
"I won't swear what I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pulled myself up in time."
At this point it occurred to him that if Elise had betrayed the secret of his love-making she would also have told her own tale of its repulse. That had to be accounted for.
"I can tell you one queer thing about that woman, Corbett. She's cold—cold."
"Oh, come, Waddington—"
"You wouldn't think it—"
"I don't," said Sir John, with a loud guffaw.
"But I assure you, my dear Corbett, she's simply wooden. Talk of making love, you might as well make love to—to a chair or a cabinet. I can tell you Markham's had a lucky escape."
"I don't imagine that's what put him off," said Sir John. "He knew something."
"What do you suppose he knew?"
"Something the Benhams told them, I fancy. They'd some queer story.Rather think she ran after Dicky, and Mrs. Benham didn't like it."
"Don't know what she wanted with him. Couldn't have been in love with him, I will say that for her."
"Well, she seems to have preferred their bungalow to her own. Anyhow, they couldn't get her out of it."
"I don't believe that story. We must be fair to the woman, Corbett."
He thought he had really done it very well. Not only had he accounted honourably for his repulse, but he had cleared Elise. And he had cleared himself from the ghastly imputation of middle-age. Repulse or no repulse, he was proud of his spurt of youthful passion.
And in another minute he had persuaded himself that his main motive had been the desire to be fair to Elise.
"H'm! I don't know about being fair," said Sir John. "Anyhow, I congratulate you on your lucky escape."
Mr. Waddington rose to go. "Of course—about what I told you—you won't let it go any further?"
Sir John laughed out loud. "Of course I won't. Only wanted to know how faryouwent. Might have gone farther and fared worse, what?"
He rose, too, laughing. "If anybody tries to pump me I shall say you behaved very well. So you did, my dear fellow, so you did. Considering the provocation."
He could afford to laugh. He had got it out of poor old Waddington, as he said he would. But to the eternal honour of Sir John Corbett, it did not go any further. When people tried to get it out of him he simply said that there was nothing in it, and that to his certain knowledge Waddington had behaved very well. As Barbara had prophesied, nobody believed that he had behaved otherwise. It was not for nothing that he was Mr. Waddington of Wyck.
And in consequence of the revelations she had made to her friend, Miss Gregg, very early in the New Year Elise found other doors closed to her besides the Markhams' and the Waddingtons'. And behind the doors on each side of the White House respectable householders could sleep in their beds on Friday nights without fear of being wakened by the opening and shutting of Mrs. Levitt's door and by the shrill "Good nights" called out from its threshold and answered up the street The merry bridge parties and the little suppers were no more.
Even the Rector's geniality grew more and more Christian and perfunctory, till he too left off stopping to talk to Mrs. Levitt when he met her in the street.
3
Mr. Waddington's confession to Sir John was about the only statement relating to the Waddington affair which did not go any further. Thus a very curious and interesting report of it reached Ralph Bevan through Colonel Grainger, when he heard for the first time of the part Barbara had played in it.
In the story Elise had told in strict confidence to Miss Gregg, Mr. Waddington had been deadly afraid of her and had beaten a cowardly retreat behind Barbara's big guns. Not that either Elise or Miss Gregg would have admitted for one moment that her guns were big; Colonel Grainger had merely inferred the deadliness of her fire from the demoralization of the enemy.
"Your little lady, Bevan," he said, "seems to have come off best in that encounter."
"We needn't worry any more about the compact, Barbara, now I know about it," Ralph said, as they walked together. Snow had fallen. The Cotswolds were all white, netted with the purplish brown filigree-work of the trees. Their feet went crunching through the furry crystals of the snow.
"No. That's one good thing she's done."
"Was it very funny, your scrap?"
"It seemed funnier at the time than it did afterwards. It was really rather beastly. Fanny didn't like it."
"You could hardly expect her to. There's a limit to Fanny's sense of humour."
"There's a limit to mine. Fanny was right. I had to fight her with the filthiest weapons. I had to tell her she couldn't do anything because he was Waddington of Wyck, and she was up against all his ancestors. I had to drag in his ancestors."
"That was bad."
"I know it was. It's what Fanny hated. And no wonder. She made me feel such a miserable little snob, Ralph."
"Fanny did?"
"Yes.Shecouldn't have done it. She'd have let her do her damnedest."
"That's because Fanny's an incurable little aristocrat. She's got more Waddington of Wyckedness in her little finger than Horatio has in all his ego; and she despises Mrs. Levitt. She wouldn't have condescended to scrap with her."
"The horrible thing is, it's true. He can do what he likes and nothing happens to him. He can turn the Ballingers out of their house and nothing happens. He can make love to a woman who doesn't want to be made love to and nothing happens. Because he's Waddington of Wyck."
"He's Waddington of Wyck, but he isn't such a bad old thing, really. People laugh at him, but they like him because he's so funny. And they've taken Mrs. Levitt's measure pretty accurately."
"You don't think, then, I was too big a beast to her?"
Ralph laughed.
"Somebody had to save him, Ralph. After all, he's Fanny's husband."
"Yes, after all, he's Fanny's husband."
"So you don't—do you?"
"Of course I don't…. What's he doing now?"
"Oh, just pottering about with his book. It's nearly finished."
"You've kept it up?"
"Rather. There isn't a sentence he mightn't have written himself. I think I'm going to let him go back to Lower Wyck on the last page and end there. In his Manor. I thought of putting something in about holly-decked halls and Yule logs on the Christmas hearth. He was photographed the other day. In the snow."
"Gorgeous."
"I wonder if he'll really settle down now. Or if he'll do it all over again some day with somebody else."
"You can't tell. You can't possibly tell. He may do anything."
"That's what we feel about him," Barbara said.
"Endless possibilities. Yet you'd think he couldn't go one better thanMrs. Levitt."
For the next half-mile they disputed whether in the scene with Mrs. Levitt he was or was not really funny. Ralph was inclined to think that he might have been purely disgusting.
"You didn'tseehim, Ralph. You've no right to say he wasn't funny."
"No. No. I didn't see him. You needn't rub it in, Barbara."
"We've got to wait and see what he does next. It may be your turn any day."
"We can't expect him to do very much for a little while. He must be a bit exhausted with this last stunt."
"Yes. And the funny thing is he has moments when you don't laugh at him. Moments of calm, beautiful peace…. You come on him walking in his garden looking for snowdrops in the snow. Or he's sitting in his library, reading Buchan's 'History of the Great War.' Happy. Not thinking about himself at all. Then you're sorry you ever laughed at him."
"I'm not," Ralph said. "He owes it us. He does nothing else to justify his existence."
"Yes. But he exists. He exists. And somehow, it's pretty mysterious when you think of it. You wonder whether you mayn't have seen him all wrong. Whether all the time he isn't just, a simple old thing. When you get that feeling—of his mysteriousness, Ralph—somehow you're done."