HALF-HONEYMOON
HALF-HONEYMOON
HALF-HONEYMOON
“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me,And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...”Edward FitzGerald: “Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám.”
“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me,And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...”Edward FitzGerald: “Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám.”
“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me,And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...”Edward FitzGerald: “Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám.”
“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me,
And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:
Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...”
Edward FitzGerald: “Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám.”
A fortnightbefore Whitsuntide Lord Pentyre engaged a taxi for the day and drove round London, belatedly assembling a house-party for Croxton Hall.
“Mothers aren’t fit to be trusted!,” he explained querulously to Deganway, when they met in the smoking-room of the County Club. “I suppose it’s the war. They’ve got utterly out of hand... And you could always rely on mine to collect the worst-assorted cranks, crooks and bores in the length and breadth of Buckinghamshire. I vaguely left things to her... You must help me out, Gerry; we’ll make up a party of our own and freeze out the others.”
Deganway called for a draft list of the guests before committing himself.
“General Sir Maurice Maitland,” he read, letting fall his eye-glass in blank dismay. “Oh, my dear, he’ll want to talk to me about the war; no one can make him understand that it’sover... Lady Maitland... She always wants to know what I’m going to do about Russia andwillmake me responsible for the peace conference... Ivy... Oh, that’s the niece; Eric Lane has a wild passion for her—”
“I saw him at Maidenhead with her last Sunday. Happy thought! He shall come and talk to her... I want one or two bright souls who’ll talk tomeand perhaps take a handin a little game of poker. You, me, Babs Oakleigh, Sonia O’Rane, my young brother,—Amy Loring doesn’t play—thePinto de Vasconcellos....”
“Oh, Bobbie,canwe bear them for the whole of a long week-end?,” asked Deganway with misgiving. “Madame is mortally offended with any man who doesn’t make love to her, and the husband with any man who does. I should hate to be knifed or garotted or whatever they do in Brazil or wherever they come from.”
“I don’t know them. Margaret Poynter wished them on to my mother.”
“I don’t know them either. I dine with them, and that’s surely enough... Well, I’ll see you through with them, if you’ll do the same for me another time.”
Pentyre reached for his crutches and returned to his taxi. After drawing blank at the Eclectic Club, he found John Carstairs at Hale’s and Eric at the Thespian. The draft list was again submitted for approval, with Ivy’s name prominently exposed as a bait; and, with an effort of concentration, Eric addressed himself to the invitation. For ten days he had been too much preoccupied to think of a world outside Eaton Place and Ryder Street; week-end parties were no doubt being made up; strange, half-forgotten voices summoned him to dine and go to the opera, but he lived and worked in a dream bounded by unconsciousness from the moment when Ivy left him at night till the moment when she reappeared next day.
“Most of the party will be coming on Friday afternoon,” Pentyre explained.
“Where to?,” asked Eric.
“Croxton, of course, you idiot! Do pay alittleattention! You needn’t pretend you’ve never been there. Well, what about it?”
Eric stretched out his hand for the list and, on reading itagain, discovered that he had read it the first time without taking in any of the names.
“I should love to come,” he answered absently.
Pentyre limped away in search of new victims, leaving Eric to dine with Dr. Gaisford. An accomplice is entitled to full confidence, and Eric had invited the doctor to receive a report on the Maidenhead expedition; when Pentyre burst disturbingly in on his reverie, he was wondering how much to tell. A week had passed since Ivy entered upon her duties as secretary; on the first day she walked sedately into the library, as nine o’clock was striking, then listened for the door to close behind her and fluttered into his arms.
“I came so early that I had to wait outside for a quarter of an hour,” she said, putting up her face to be kissed. “How are you, Eric?”
“Hardly awake yet,” he answered. “I usually dictate from my bed, at this hour, but I didn’t want to embarrass you, so I’m dressed long before my time.”
“But what a shame!... Won’t you kiss me good-morning, Eric?”
He shook his head and laughed. A half honeymoon was too dangerous an experiment with a girl who was supposed to be considering dispassionately whether she wanted to marry him. And, if he expected to leave England in six or eight weeks’ time, there was abundant work to be done first.
“I shallprobablycall you ‘Miss Maitland’ from nine till six,” he told her. “Do you like working with or without a hat? I’ll shew you where I keep my typewriter and stationery and files and things; and then I can give you enough letters to keep you occupied till lunch-time.”
He was leading the way to the door, when Ivy laid her hand on his arm.
“Don’t be so horribly efficient forfiveminutes,” she begged. “I haven’t seen you since last night, Eric!Suchalong time! And I want to be shewn your flat. I was too miserable to see anything when I was here before.”
In a day and a night she had recovered her self-respect and composure; she had slept well, and the shadows under her eyes had faded. Eric had not the heart to chill her new-found happiness.
“Five minutes, then,” he conceded. “But we shall have to work twice as fast afterwards. Did your aunt raise any objection to your coming here?”
“Oh, she was delighted... Eric, youhavegot the loveliest rooms. We shall live here, of course; I couldn’t bear to go anywhere else.”
“If,” he warned her.
“When,” she amended. “Eric, why d’you insist on waiting a month? D’you want to see if you’ll get tired of me?”
“No, I just want to be sure that you know your own mind. Sudden conversions are always dangerous. And you’re too precious to me to be married on a snap division. So for a month we won’t say or do anything that ties your hands in any way. I’m not giving a hint to any one, even my own people; I’m not proposing to make any allusion to you.”
Before three days had passed Eric found that it was easier to take this resolution than to live up to it. Amy Loring stopped him in the street to say:
“I hear the little Maitland girl is working for you now. I’m so glad.”
“My secretary’s gone for a holiday,” he answered, unconsciously putting himself on his guard. “Ivy kindly consented to come in her place for a few weeks.”
“I was told you’d taken her on permanently.”
“Oh, no! Who did you hear that from?”
“Johnnie Gaymer. He seems to have transferred his affections to another quarter. I won’t mention names, but a woman—she’s rather a friend of mine; at least, her husband is; and, while he’s away, she’s been getting much toointimate with Johnnie—I talked to her... And then I talked to him. Whether it ever does any good I don’t know, but I did tell him very frankly to keep his hands off other people’s property. And, while I was on the subject, I told him to leave this Maitland child alone. It was then that he told me she’d gone to you.”
“His intelligence department is good,” Eric commented. “She only came to me two days ago.”
“I expect Johnnie feels that his nose is a little out of joint.”
Eric smiled, but he was disquieted; though he saw and heard nothing of Gaymer, he could not help thinking of him; he had been brooding uneasily when Pentyre came into the club; he continued to worry himself with vague doubts as he waited for Gaisford.
“Well, I suppose I may say we’re on probation,” Eric announced, when the doctor arrived for dinner. “I put the whole case before the girl, the day after our talk, and we’re taking a month to see how we get on before she makes her final decision. I hope that may be accounted to me for prudence. By the way, she’s working for me as secretary for a few weeks.”
“So I heard.”
“Damnation!”
The doctor laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“You know, Eric, you’re as much of an ostrich as you’ve always been,” he said. “Either credit people with the faculty of sight, or be philosophical and say you don’t care what other people think.”
“Idon’tcare,—but it’s annoying,” said Eric inconsequently. “How did you hear?”
“From Barbara Oakleigh.”
Eric was startled, and his expression and tone grew hard.
“It’s very good of her to interest herself in me,” he murmured.
Gaisford ignored the sneer and gave Eric time to recover his urbanity.
“It’s very natural,” he amended. “I told you, when you first came back, that you’d played far too big a part in her life for her to let go of you without a struggle. You may think that, after the harm she’s done, she’d keep away out of common decency—that’s a man’s point of view—; but, when a woman gets down to what she considers vital, common decency has no meaning for her. The function of woman—”
“What did she say?,” Eric interrupted, blowing away the froth of generalization.
“We had a long talk. She asked if I’d seen you, and I said ‘Yes.’ How were you? I said you were better than you’d been in ten years. Did you seem happy? ‘Very,’ I said. (I’m devoted to Barbara in spite of everything, but she wanted the luxury of feeling that she’d spoilt your life and of pretending to be inconsolable about it; I couldn’t allow that). She asked if you ever mentioned her; I said ‘no’... Then I could see that she wasn’t satisfied, for her next question was—who was the girl who was working for you; and was she the girl who was always with you at the opera? I said, truthfully enough, that I didn’t know... Be warned, my friend.”
“I wonder how she heard,” was all that Eric would answer; but he was aflame with resentment at the thought that Barbara even unconsciously dreamed of overturning the flimsy shelter which he was so patiently erecting from the rubble and ruin of his life.
Gaisford looked at him out of the corner of his eye and saw that he was frowning. He saw, too, that, were Barbara to question him now, he could not so truthfully pay tributes to Eric’s health.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck, my son,” he said. “Of course, it’s an enormous risk, but I think you do atleast see that; and you’re giving yourself as fair a chance as circumstances allow.”
“You’re—temperate in your enthusiasm,” Eric laughed.
“I’ve reached an age when I no longer look for perfection—even the perfect marriage,” Gaisford said at length. “And I’ve outgrown romance. And I’ve not many ideals left. When everything else is burnt out, I want to know that you’ve found companionship. You’re as bad as all the rest, Eric; at present you’re doing this for a new emotion... I don’tknowthis girl—, but is she going to be acompanion? It’s an awful thing to marry some one who’s not educated up to your standard; it’s like playing bridge eternally with a partner who doesn’t know one suit from another.”
“She’s—a companion all right,” said Eric softly, remembering with a warm rush of gratitude the new colour that she had already brought into his life. Ivy was quick and receptive; he found her also well-read and intelligent, with a personal standpoint towards books and ideas which she had taken up by herself and would not surrender without a struggle; if she picked up her generation’s catch-words, it was because she was still too young to understand the emancipation of which every one was talking. Best of all, she was adaptable by nature, and he could see her moulding herself to his form in the single hope of bringing him happiness. “She’s companion enough to make me forget everything else—already,” he added.
“Already?It doesn’t occur to you that you’re both drunk with romance at the moment? The reason why your two-penny-halfpenny plays are so popular is that we all love telling ourselves stories and escaping into a world where we can be as dramatic and romantic and purposeful and magnanimous as a character in a book—or as you and this child are being at this moment. Admit that you’re both enjoying it! The heroics, the tragedy, the sacrifice—”
“I’m making no sacrifice, Gaisford,” Eric interrupted, soberly.
“You’re incorrigible! You wereboundto say that! It’s in the part. Well, well! I only beg you—because I’m fond of you—not to make a farce of what you call your probation. Imagine yourself criticizing some one else’s play instead of living in one of your own. Detachment, detachment!”
For the next few days Eric conscientiously tried to regard his secretary as a soulless, amorphous machine; Ivy, however, was made too much of a piece to work mechanically from nine till half-past one, then give rein to her feelings from half-past one till three and again relapse into a machine. She toiled as though her life and his career depended on every letter that she wrote; her eyes shone when he came into the room; and she took in every movement of his body and every trick of voice and speech. At the end of the day she sprang up like a child released from school and threw her arms round him.
“Do youalwayswork like this?,” she asked him one night. “Itmustbe bad for you.”
“I don’t callthiswork,” he answered. “The atmosphere’s too highly charged with Miss Ivy Maitland for that. But I want to get my present job finished, so that,ifI go to America—”
“When,” she interrupted with a pleading smile that taxed his fortitude. It was hardly possible to keep at an artificial distance without robbing her of her precarious security.
“We’ll discuss that in three weeks’ time.IfI go, I want to go with a clear conscience.”
“You insist on waiting?”
“We can’t take any risk, Ivy,” he sighed.
She pushed him gently into a chair and knelt on the floor by his side, resting her face on her hands and looking at himwith an adoration which seemed still too great for her to comprehend.
“My darling, do you think I don’t love you more and more every day?,” she asked. “I don’twantto wait. Sometimes I grow frightened, Eric; I wonder if you’ll repent... I know you love me, or you wouldn’t have done what you have done—”
“But you wouldn’t be a woman, if you didn’t want me to tell you at short intervals that I still loved you. I’m trying to get a cool judgement from you.”
“And I don’t want to be cool or temperate or sensible. I... I want not to be frightened again, Eric.”
Her eyes, wistful with discouragement, filled with tears and fell until he could see the long lashes black against her cheeks. Since their return from Maidenhead, she had never complained; and Eric was in danger of forgetting that she had anything to fear. Putting his arm round her waist, he lifted her on to the arm of the chair.
“You’ve nothing to be afraid of, Ivy,” he whispered, stroking her short black hair until she grew calm at his touch. “I shouldn’t go back on my promise, even if I wanted to. And it happens that I don’t want to.”
“But youdolove me, Eric? I’ve been thinking—quite a lot and quite cold-bloodedly. I can’t take what you’re offering, unless you love me. It would be too much, I should have no right... If I did anything, after this, to make you wretched... And Ishouldn’ttake it.... You said you’d marry me in spite of everything, but I sometimes think you’re marrying mebecauseof everything,becauseI’ve made such a mess of my life,becauseyou were divinely sorry for me. But do you love me apart from that? If I told you that the whole thing was a dream—”
“I should call it a device of destiny for bringing us together...” He stopped abruptly, afraid to trust his voice,as her eyes lit up. “And, by the same test, if thatwereonly a dream, would you want to marry me?,” he continued.
“Yes.”
“More than any one you’ve ever met or are likely to meet?”
“Yes.” Eric sighed and lapsed into silence; for the first time in ten days he felt sure of himself. “But I shan’t love you a bit,” she pouted, “if you’re cold and remote when we’re married.”
“If... All right, I won’t tease you, Ivy child, if it frightens you. What can I say to keep you from ever being frightened again? Shall I tell you that my heart and head and everything inside me were dead until a few days ago? You’ve brought me to life again...” He leaned his head against her shoulder, staring into the empty fire and talking more to himself than to her. “What d’you think it means to me to feel that this room’s alive, alive with you? When I’m called, my first thought is that in two hours I shall see you. An hour and a half, one hour... When you come in, Ivy, it’s all dark outside. It’s not what I should call easy to work with you. I want to break the typewriter and pick you up in my arms... Is it just a coincidence that I’ve happened to lunch at home every day this week? Or is it possible that I’ve been looking forward to it ever since the last moment when we were off duty together? Is it coincidence that I’ve been to the opera every night this week—Aida, ye all powerful gods! and another dose of Louise—and that I’ve sat two feet behind you so that I could see your face lit up and knew that you were happy?” Her hand stole down over his shoulder, and he seized and kissed it. “And I wonder if you’ll ever guess how amazingly empty these rooms seem when I come back at night and find you’re not here—andwon’tbe here till next day?”
“Iknow. When I get back... I pray for you, Eric. I never used to pray before. At least, it never meantanything to me, but now... I thank God for you; and I feel He understands... He understands that you’ve interceded for me. And I pray Him to forgive me and shew me some way of paying you back. And sometimes I pray Him to make me patient; and sometimes, when I’m frightened, I pray Him just to make the weeks pass quickly. Ah, my dear one!” Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and the voice at his ear trembled. “If anything happened to you!”
“Nothing’s going to, Ivy!”
“Butever? You’re sixteen years older than I am. When I’m seventy—”
“You’ll have had more than enough of me then.”
“Please God, I shall die before you, Eric!”
“Well, I’ll promise not to marry again,” he laughed. “Ivy, are you too tired to take down one more letter?”
“My darling, of course not!”
“I want you to write to my solicitors. I’ve never made a will; and, of course, I shall have to make another,ifandwhenwe marry, but I don’t want to run even the remotest risk. I gather that you can’t look to your father with any certainty?”
“He told me so—quite definitely. If Ichoseto cut myself adrift—”
“Well, I’m going to tell my solicitors to draft a will; I’ll leave your name blank and fill it in afterwards. Then, if I drop down dead in the street—”
“Don’t, Eric!”
It was seven o’clock before he had finished, and they both had to dress and make their way out to dinner by a quarter past eight. Eric walked into Ryder Street to find her a taxi and to post his letters.
“What do you say to coming to my people for this next week-end?,” he asked. “We won’t tell them anything, of course, but I should like you to meet them. I’m committed to going any way; and I can take you on the plea of work,if necessary. My younger brother was away fighting, when he came of age, so we’re celebrating it now. Will you come? Good. We’ll discuss details at dinner; you’re coming to this Brazilian show at the Ritz, aren’t you?”
“Madame Pinto de Vasconcellos? Yes, Aunt Connie’s taking me.”
“Let’s hope we’re together. It threatens to be a tiresome evening.”
His dinner-party, heralded by a flamboyant card of invitation and reinforced by the personal appeals of Lady Maitland, Mrs. Shelley and Lady Poynter, had threatened him for three weeks. Early in the season a taciturn and swarthy South American had descended upon London with a wife, a bottomless purse and inexhaustible letters of introduction. Madame Pinto had noteworthy diamonds, vitality, an interest in the more obvious forms of flirtation and a hunger for entertaining. Her first letter of introduction was presented to Lady Poynter, who telephoned to six friends in twice six minutes: “If you will help me out with this Pinto woman, I’ll do the same for you”; and for three weeks the Brazilians were pushed from house to house by those who were menaced by their own Madame Pinto—under other names—or who had launched Madame Pintos in the past. Gerry Deganway, whose name headed every list of those whom it did not matter inviting to meet thePinto de Vasconcellos, tracked them round London and sketched a map of their progress from Belgrave Square and Lady Poynter, where they were submerged by symbolist poets and rapidly expelled because they “contributed nothing” to the symposium, by way of Eaton Place, where Lady Maitland sold them boxes for charity concerts, to Grosvenor Square and Croxton Hall, where Lady Pentyre took them in because, in her son’s words, she knew no better and would be kind to any one.
Thereafter gratitude or vindictiveness urged them toreprisals, and for three more weeks Lady Poynter arranged “Pinto parties” on the principle that, if her friends would keep her in countenance on one day, she would do the same for them when their turn came. The formula was incorporated in the code of social honour, till a man would more readily have malingered on the eve of an attack than failed to succour a friend who was struck down by a Pinto invitation. Eric had resisted for some weeks: but Lady Poynter at last presented an ultimatum, which he saw no means of evading.
There was already a considerable nucleus when he reached the hotel a few minutes before the advertised time for dinner; and those who knew nothing of their host were industriously adding to the saga collected by those who did.
“Why does Margaret Poynterdothese things?,” squeaked Deganway with a petulant glance round the company. “She’stootiresome. What she canhopeto get out of it—”
“I understand she’s trying to make him subsidize a Shakespeare theatre,” interrupted Carstairs. “Well, I mustn’t throw stones; my old mother wants to stick him with Herrig on a long lease.Ithink it’s a bit of a gamble, because no one knows anything about them. The Embassy shuts up like an oyster, if you mention their name; and the Brazilian colony don’t seem much the wiser.”
“Oh,Iheard—Now, let me see, whatdidI hear?,” said Deganway, letting fall his eye-glass and frowning. “He got a contract for building a new railway and, because the contract said nothing about bridges, he stopped short, whenever he came to a river, and started again on the other side. Then they gave him a new contract to build the bridges and link up his system.That’swhere he made his profit; but Brazil wasn’t healthy, when he’d finished, so he bolted with the boodle. So romantic! He didn’t bolt quick enough, though;sheovertook him just as the gangway was being cast off.”
He laughed thinly; but Eric had heard enough from him and, turning away, he found himself face to face with Lady John Carstairs.
“DoallEnglish people make fun of a woman before eating her food,” she said rather sharply, with a quelling gesture at her husband, as they shook hands.
“Only the better-bred,” Eric answered. “It’s one of the things you have to get used to. What’s Madame Pinto like? I don’t even know her by sight.”
“Oh, she’s quite harmless, but you can’t pick up everything in a day. I’ve been here six months and I can’t yet keep all my own husband’s relations distinct... Ah, here they are!”
She turned with a smile, as a stout, sallow woman in a pink dress advanced apologetically into the lounge with a tall, saturnine husband at her heels. Both looked round with dizzy shyness, breaking into shrill effusiveness, when they recognized a face and could fit it with an approximate name.Madame Pinto de Vasconcellosspoke fluent English with a strong accent; her husband limited himself to a bow, a handshake and a clipped “How do you do?,” as his wife’s friends brought up their own friends to be introduced. From time to time, pretending to count the numbers, he peered furtively at a type-written list, but, as Lady Poynter undertook the introductions and never remembered more than one name, his initial perplexity deepened to bewilderment.
Eric was caught and pushed forward with a hasty, “You know Madame Pinto, don’t you? Now, is it worth while waiting for the Oakleighs? Barbara was born a week late, and she’s never caught up.”
Though he fancied that for the last fortnight he had forgotten Barbara and that for the last three months he had rehearsed himself into impassivity, Eric knew that the muscles of his face were stiffening. Lady Poynter was happily too much preoccupied to notice any sign of embarrassment, and in a moment he was at ease again. Itwould be a strain on his fortitude, perhaps, if he were placed next to Barbara; but he knew that he could meet her and sit composedly at the same table. He knew also that this meeting had to take place....
Lady Poynter possessed herself of the type-written list and suggested that they should begin without waiting any longer. As he peered at the name-cards, Eric was relieved to find that he was five places away from Barbara, on the same side of the table, between Ivy and Madame Pinto; he was further relieved that he was facing the door so that he would probably see her before she saw him....
As dinner began, his hostess exchanged bewilderment for frank recklessness.
“I do not know half these people,” she confided loudly. “I meet so many. Tell me, Mr. ——,” she reached for powdered sugar and tried without success to read Eric’s name-card, “the woman next to Lord Poynter; who is she?”
“That’s Lady John Carstairs,” Eric answered. “Her husband’s on Lady Maitland’s right; and that’s his mother, the Duchess of Ross, between your husband and Mr. Deganway.”
“Ah, thank you. It is so confusing at first. I have made the most dreadful mistakes through not knowing who every one was.”
“Well, Lady John says she doesn’t yet know her own relations,” Eric answered reassuringly. “She’s an American, you know.”
Madame Pinto rolled her eyes in consternation:
“I did not know. We met at Lady Poynter’s house, and I said terrible things about North America. In my country—Brazil, you know... You are not an American?”
“You can say anything you like to me, Madame Pinto. Political, racial, religious... By the way, half these people are Catholics, you know....”
He broke off, as the door opened to admit Barbara andGeorge Oakleigh. Eric felt his features stiffening again, as she looked round to identify her hostess and came forward with an exaggerated apology. She had always dominated any room that she entered; she dominated this one. While she paused a studied moment in the door-way, every one involuntarily turned to look at her; the comfortable clatter of conversation grew still and died away, to be succeeded by blurred cries of welcome: “Babs!” “Dear Barbara, how sweet you look to-night!” “Babs darling!” Eric had stood a dozen times, like George Oakleigh, a pace behind her, as she came into the room; like him, a little embarrassed to be late; like him, exulting in the theatrical magnificence of her entry....
Ivy touched his arm and whispered:
“Is that Lady Barbara? I’ve only seen her in the distance before. Eric, how fascinating she is!”
Barbara brought her apology to an end and looked for her chair. Her eyes met Eric’s, and, as she passed him, she shook hands and murmured, “How are you?” There was a final spurt of welcome from the men on either side of her, as she sat down; and Eric tried to remember what he had been discussing before her interruption.
Madame Pinto had lost no time in establishing him as her confidant and adviser; with her second glass of champagne, matter-of-course friendliness warmed to embarrassingly out-spoken coquetry.
“You are clever and nice,” she proclaimed resonantly, darting a swift glance from under darkened eye-lashes and touching his hand with sparkling, ring-laden fingers. “Those two, now? Who are they?”
“George Oakleigh and his wife,” Eric answered in an undertone. “He used to be in the House—in Parliament, you know. She was Lady Barbara Neave, daughter of Lord Crawleigh, our Governor-General in Canada at one time, then Viceroy of India. She’s related to almost everybodyhere—first cousin of Carstairs, first cousin of Lady Amy Loring....”
Madame Pinto nodded vehemently until her diamonds quivered and flashed.
“I remember! I met her at lunch with Lady Poynter. And, also, I have heard of her,” she answered. “That young man in your Ministry of Foreign Affairs—”
“Deganway? You mustn’t take all he says too literally,” interposed Eric.
Madame Pinto’s voice was more penetrating than she knew; and he could see that Barbara was sitting inattentive to her neighbours.
“He said that she had broken all your hearts, one after another... I am not surprised.”
“Youmustbe careful,” Eric whispered in agony. “She’ll hear.”
Barbara had already heard and was pretending that she had not, galvanizing herself to an interest in her neighbour. Madame Pinto looked down the table and saw her preoccupied.
“Ah, you are one of all those relations! I am sorry, Mr. ——?”
“An old friend,” Eric answered brusquely.
Perhaps it was feminine curiosity, perhaps Madame Pinto felt subconsciously that she was being headed off something of interest, perhaps she had a perverse talent for themal à propos. Certainly it seemed as though nothing would satisfy her until she had plumbed the bottomless pool of gossip in which Deganway had submerged Barbara; and for the hundredth time Eric wished that some one would thrash Deganway or cut his tongue out.
“I hear you’re taking a house in London,” he began hurriedly.
Madame Pinto was not to be so easily diverted from her quest.
“Mr. Deganway told me,” she pursued, “that, when she was sixteen, a man blew his brains out, because she would not marry him. He says that, ever since, she has expected it of all the others.”
“The first part of the story’s probably untrue; the second certainly is,” Eric answered curtly. “I know her very well, Madame Pinto. She’s always been rather unconventional, she’s always been greatly admired and very much in the public eye. The result is that no story is too fantastic to be believed about her by people who don’t know her. Deganwaydoes; and he’s no business to talk such nonsense... I used to see a great deal of Lady Barbara before her marriage; I look back on her friendship as one of the greatest achievements of my life. Steele said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that to love her was a liberal education; I should like to think that my friendship meant half as much to any one.... Do you know Carstairs well? He’s in the Diplomatic, and I believe he was out in Rio once....”
The abrupt transition from low-voiced, tense earnestness to a conversational drawl convinced even Madame Pinto that he was forcibly dismissing Barbara from discussion.
“Have I said something dreadful?,” she asked with an unabashed smile.
“Didn’t I tell you that you could say anything you liked to me?,” he laughed. “Political, racial, religious? I only draw the line at something personal, when it concerns a friend of mine and doesn’t happen to be true. Deganway ought to know better.”
As he turned to Ivy, Eric glanced involuntarily past her and was in time to see Barbara looking quickly away. She, then, had heard, too. And probably half a dozen more on either side, but they did not matter. He wondered whether she would try to speak to him after dinner. She would love the dramatic sense of humility in thanking him for his defence....
“I sent my mother a line before dinner to fix up about the week-end,” Eric announced at random. “I forget if I warned you that my father had a serious illness last autumn....”
His family and home provided a subject for discussion with Ivy until the end of dinner. While Madam Pinto was talking, it seemed as though they were rivetted to their chairs through all eternity; as soon as he was set free, their plates were snatched away almost before they could see what had been placed before them. Lulled by the drone of his own voice, Eric roused with a start to hear the Duchess of Ross asking her son whether he had room for her in his car, as she had to be at another party by eleven. One or two of the men looked at their watches; chairs were pushed back and heads dived under the table in search of gloves and bags. Barbara stood up and took in the room at a glance; and Eric felt that her personality spread through the air like a wave of electricity. Ivy was talking to Lady Maitland, Madame Pinto was receiving thanks and showeringadieuxon her guests; alone and apart, he was too far from any one to take cover.
Barbara began to draw on her gloves and walked slowly towards the door. As she came opposite him, she turned almost in afterthought, looking up for an instant before concentrating afresh on the buttons of her glove.
“It was nice of you to stand up for me against that odious woman, Eric,” she whispered.
“One lie more or less hardly matters at this season, Lady Barbara.”
“Dear God! don’t call me that!”
Eric had a full armoury of bitterness, but opportunity killed any desire to use it. He had been ready to find Barbara falsely repentant or as falsely defiant; she would perhaps explain, perhaps scoff; he had not expected that she would plead for mercy because he had unwittingly hurt her.
“Idid not seek this meeting,” he answered.
“You never used to be vindictive.”
“I’m doing my best to forget anything I was, anything I’ve done.”
“You hate me as much as that? I thought... No, I hoped, Ihopedyou meant it when you said that to love me was a liberal education.”
Her softly reproachful tone puffed into flame every memory of his own three years’ suffering, which to her was but an occasion for snatching at a compliment.
“If so, a liberal education has no place for romance. You cured me of that. It was not your fault. As you know, I’d been a semi-invalid all my life; I’d been brought up among women who shewed me only unselfishness and devotion and patience and sacrifice. I could trust them; they told the truth. When you used the same terms, I thought they meant the same things to you.”
She bit her lip until it shewed grey under the white gleam of her teeth:
“Well, I hope you at least will be happy, Eric, some time. When you are, you’ll become magnanimous again. Then perhaps you’ll forgive me.”
“I can’t feel that my forgiveness plays much part in your happiness.”
“I sometimes wonder if I’ve ever known what happiness means... Good-bye, Eric.”
She held out her hand and stood looking at him with eyelids flickering as though he had struck her in the face; she was wincing before a second blow. To act was so much second nature to her that her attitude of unfriended humility might be a pose; but Eric felt that, inasmuch as she had not descended to his duel of bitterness, she had prevailed in the encounter. He hated the whole evening, with its need to lie in her defence and his own bursting desire to escape the charge of magnanimity.
Eric drew his hand away, but he could not help looking at her flickering lids and reproachful eyes. So she had stood a score of times when she had goaded him to madness and his taut nerves had snapped. No longer acting, but suddenly hurt, suddenly shocked, suddenly tired; sorry to have maddened him, but helplessly torn and unable to let him go; and always gently maternal, yearning to comfort, to forgive... Her lips were parted; Eric could have sworn that her hands twitched as though she were once more going to throw her arms round him and seal her forgiveness with a kiss. With theatrical timeliness he heard George Oakleigh excusing himself from accepting an invitation....
It was impossible to stop looking at her... Why George? He wanted to fling the question at her, demanding why she had married George Oakleigh instead of waiting, though he knew that their love was paralysed before they parted. Waiting would have done no good. But why George, if he had not made her happy? She did not hint that she had married the wrong man, but it was written in her eyes; tragedy had come home to a woman who had played mock-tragic parts all her life... Loneliness... Despair... And Eric had fancied that the suffering had been all on his side, that she had at worst been worried to know how to explain away her treatment of him....
“Thursday, yes. I don’t think we’re doing anything on Thursday. I’ll ask Babs.”
George was still juggling with his invitation: he must have kept it aloft for hours by now... And he was coming to draw Barbara into the game.
“Good-bye, Lady Barbara,” said Eric.
She winced again:
“Do you need that to make yourself secure? If you knew how it hurt! Whatever I’ve done... I haven’t defended myself, have I, Eric? And, whatever you think of me, won’t you say you forgive me, if I tell you that I needit, that it will make a difference to me? Do you want me to feel that I’ve killed your generosity—in addition to everything else?”
“I’ll say it, if it’s any consolation to you.”
“Thank you, Eric. You needn’t be afraid, I’ve had my share of education, too. I didn’t know you were going to be here to-night; I’ve tried not to embarrass you. If it’s any help for you to know where I’m dining and that sort of thing... I’ll do anything I can not to make things harder.”
Eric shook his head quickly and looked up, as George crossed the room. Barbara’s moment of sincerity had passed: she had passed the half-obliterated line between emotion and drama. Already she was weaving a romance about the pair of them: there was to be a life’s passion thwarted, two starved hearts beating in remote loneliness, resignation on her side and chivalry on his, with ingenious romantic appliances to keep the starved hearts starving; they were to spend as much quixotic contrivance on keeping apart as ever a pair of lovers had given to daily clandestine meetings... A sensationalist to the core... The distraction would keep her dramatic sense stimulated for years; in the endless possibilities of make-believe she might forget her tragedy. He would almost have abetted her, if so he might forget the look of tragedy which he had seen in her eyes; but he could not trust her....
“We’ll take our chance,” he said. “I shall possibly be going away fairly soon.”
George was waiting patiently until they had finished.
“I say, Babs, are we doing anything on Thursday?” he asked. “Madame Pinto wants us to lunch, and I said I thought we could.”
She looked at her husband with a smile of gentle reproach:
“Darling George, we’ve got the O’Ranes lunching with us. Am I right in thinking that you’ve forgotten all about them?”
Eric bowed and turned away. “Am I right in thinking...?” It was a familiar trick of speech; Barbara had used it to him on the night of their first meeting nearly four years ago. It hurt him to hear her using it to George, though he did not mind her calling him “darling”. Women were a promiscuous sex, transferring their hearts and bodies as light-heartedly as a servant took a new situation “to better herself”... As he passed out of sound of their voices, he felt that this evening he had had the greatest escape of his life; Barbara would not try to meet him again, and he could keep her at arm’s length, if she did. He only hoped that he would forget that look of tragedy....
Ivy was waiting for him by the door, and he felt that he owed her an explanation, perhaps an apology....
“Aunt Connie’s gone home in Lady Poynter’s car,” she announced. “She’s left her own for us. I’d better drop you at your flat and take it on home.”
“I’ll just say good-bye...” He darted back and rejoined her a moment later. “Well, thank goodnessthat’sover. Of all the forcible feeders who outrage total strangers in the sacred name of hospitality... Did you enjoy yourself, Ivy?”
She pressed his hand, once more at ease; and he wondered whether she fancied that she was rescuing him for herself from Barbara.
“I love being with you—as you know, you vain thing!,” she answered. “Shall I tell you something? I went into the dining-room before dinner and found Mr. Deganway and Lord Pentyre working round the table. Lord Pentyre said, ‘Any luck, Gerry? I’ve drawn Amy Loring and Connie Maitland. Might be worse.’ And Mr Deganway said, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m between Eleanor Ross and Margaret Poynter. I don’t think I can bear that; I shall break down and cry.’ So he changed the cards. Well, you said you hoped we should be together, I didn’t see why I shouldn’tlook after myself; so I changed places with Lady John and put myself next to you. Were you pleased?”
“You badly brought-up child! Yes, I was pleased, but I wish you’d given me Lady John on the other side instead of the Vasconcellos woman.”
He settled comfortably in his corner of the car, reminded inevitably of the nights three years ago, when he drove home with Barbara, discussing the party that they had left. She was the first woman to break down the isolated self-sufficiency of the bachelor and to teach him the indulgent delight of sharing trivialities; and, from the day when she dropped out of his life, he had been groping blindly for anything that would breach the wall of desolation and silence which was her parting gift....
The car stopped at the door of his flat in Ryder Street, and Ivy put up her face to be kissed.
“Good-night, darling Eric,” she whispered.
“Good-night, sweetheart.”
As the car drove away, he stood irresolutely in the hall, swinging his keys. A widower remarrying.... He was beginning to treat Ivy very much as he had treated Barbara, thinking of her and for her in the same way, using the words which had once been sacred to Barbara. And Ivy was fitting herself into his life as Barbara had once done... Promiscuity was not the differentia of woman....
Two days later his mother wrote colourlessly to say that she would be delighted to see Miss Maitland for the week-end. If she speculated on the person and destiny of a girl whose name her son had not mentioned until that moment, she kept her own counsel. When they travelled down to Winchester on the Saturday afternoon, a Remington was included in their luggage, and Eric reminded Ivy that they must keep up the pretense that she had come to help him with his work. Though they had rehearsed their parts, both were a little self-conscious; and to their oversensitiveappreciation every one at first seemed elaborately anxious not to betray surprise. Sybil met them at the station and greeted Ivy with unreserved friendliness; Lady Lane welcomed her in the hall, and, when Eric went upstairs to dress, Basil came into his room with ingenuous congratulations.
“Very nice line in secretaries, old thing,” he observed, throwing himself on Eric’s bed. “And it’s like you to keep her to yourself, you old dog, when I’ve been mouldering for two years in Salonica and simply yearning for refined female society.”
“I took the earliest possible opportunity,” Eric answered. “She’s only been with me a fortnight, while my permanent secretary’s taking a holiday; and she’s only going to be with me another fortnight.”
“Well, send her along to my jolly old office, when she’s through with you,” Basil suggested swiftly. “You’ve simply no conception of the sort of thing that’s blown in during the war. Every sign of staying, too.”
“I don’t think she’s on the look-out for that kind of job. I know her people, and, when she heard I was alone and secretaryless, she very kindly volunteered to come and lend me a hand till the other girl came back.”
Basil wagged his head dubiously.
“I call it very trusting of her parents,” he said. “Fresh sweet English girl, young bachelor of doubtful morality, notoriously associated with the stage... I don’t like it at all. I think I must warn her about you.”
“I doubt if you’ll cut much ice... Is any one dining, or are we treating her to unrelieved family?”
“The Warings are coming over to ease the monotony. And, by the same token, I’d better go and dress!”
Basil, then, suspected nothing; Geoffrey would think what Basil told him to think; his father would awake to interest when the engagement was announced—and not before. There remained his mother and Sybil.
Lady Lane was by herself in the drawing-room, when he went down, and she laid aside her paper to say:
“My dear, what a sweet little girl! Where did you find her?”
Whether it were deliberate encouragement or not, Eric was pleased:
“I met her in America first of all. She’s a daughter of the judge. I gather he knew the guv’nor in some prehistoric period.”
“I don’t remember the name.” Lady Lane waited, as though she expected that Eric might have something more to tell her; then she repeated: “A sweet little girl. You’re lucky to find her. What’s happened to the other one?”
“She’s only having a holiday. Ivy very kindly volunteered to come in her place.”
He used the Christian name deliberately and left his mother to draw her own inferences. There was a second silence; and, because she asked nothing more, he felt that, before he left the house, he must take his mother into his confidence.
Throughout dinner he tried to keep one eye on his family and the other on Ivy. She was achieving a marked success, which was not confined to his younger brothers. Sybil and the Warings made at least a show of surrender, and her success reacted on Ivy. Though she dared not look at him, Eric could see that her eyes were shining as on the day when he had brought her back from Maidenhead; she was feeling, as clearly as if she cried it aloud, that he had the most delightful parents and brothers and sister in the world.
It was after eleven—and late for Lashmar Mill-House—before the Warings left. Eric waited to fasten the windows, while his mother turned out the lights; they met in his father’s work-room.
“I quite forgot to ask Miss Maitland if she’d like herbreakfast sent up to her,” said Lady Lane, as she collected the day’s papers and dropped them into a basket.
“She never eats any—except tea and toast,” Eric answered. “Before you go up, mother, I should like you to tell me candidly what you think of her.”
“She’s very young, of course,” Lady Lane answered deliberately. She was puzzled, for he was dispassionate, and no one else in the house seemed to suspect anything. Eric was grateful to her for cutting all circumlocution. “I like her, Eric, I like her immensely. She’s sweetly pretty; I think she’s intelligent, too... You can’t expect any great experience at that age, but then most girls of the present day are wofully unpractical; she’ll have to learn, like the rest. So far as one can tell on very short acquaintance, she’s a thoroughly nice little girl... I always think a man should try to marry a woman whose experiences are behind and not in front of her. Of course, they’re growing all the time, but, like children, they grow so much more quickly when they’re very young. In that way a man’s in danger of marrying a child and finding soon afterwards that she’s grown into a woman that he doesn’t recognize... Have you known her long, Eric?”
“No. And, while I know her very intimately in some ways, I hardly know her at all in others. That’s why I wanted a general, outside opinion. It’s more than possible, mother, that I may come to you one day and tell you that we’re going to be married.”
Lady Lane nodded and kissed him lightly on the forehead:
“Well, I hope you’ll be very happy, dear Eric.” His mother was delightfully practical and restrained. She looked out on the world with steady eyes, treating emotion as an indecency. Eric wondered why none of her calm nerves had descended to him. “She’s devoted to you, you’ve only to say the word. Up to the present—?”
She paused interrogatively.
“Nothing’s fixed definitely,” Eric answered. “It’s rather hard to explain, but there’s what I suppose you might call “an understanding.” I can tell you this much: we’ve both of us seen that in love it’s possible to be quite certain of yourself and then to find, rather painfully, that you’ve been utterly mistaken. Yes, even at her age, poor child... We’ve both learned the lesson and paid the price; we don’t want to make any more mistakes. I’ve burned my fingers sufficiently to have become very unromantic... Don’t you think we’re right to wait?”
Lady Lane did not know what answer to give. Since Eric had seen the blemishes in one woman, he was looking for them in all; soon he would see nothing else.
“You mustn’t wait too long; that’s the only thing,” she advised him.
“I don’t want to take any risks.” He seemed to tell every one that—Ivy, Gaisford and his mother.
“But, in marriage, risks are necessary. Marriage is always an adventure, a blind leap. You don’t begin to know anything about a woman until you’re married to her. Even if you waited until you thought there was nothing more to learn, the girl becomes a wife, Eric, and the wife becomes a mother. Even she doesn’t see how big the change is until long afterwards, when she has time to look back and compare.Idon’t want you to run any risks, my precious son.”
“I know... AndIwant peace and quiet with somebody I love and somebody who loves me,” he answered wearily. “You remember the last time we had a talk in this room?”
“Well, Ivy loves you. Of course you’ve got a certain name, a certain position; she’s a good deal dazzled by that.”
“That isn’t the biggest factor with her... Shall we go up? You won’t say anything about this to the others, will you?”
They walked through the hall and up the stairs, arm inarm. Lady Lane paused outside the door of her room and kissed Eric good-night.
“God bless you and make you happy, Eric,” she whispered.
“Thank you... I met Barbara the other night, mother.”
“Yes?”
“It was at a big dinner. I don’t want to meet her again; it brought everything back much too vividly.”
“I’m afraid you’re bound to meet her occasionally.”
“I don’t think she’ll try to force a meeting.” Eric passed his hand over his eyes, and his mother looked at him with concern. He was beginning to shew her so many familiar danger-marks; and she prayed that he would make up his mind before his nerves broke down again. “I may be wrong,” he went on slowly; “it may be my colossal egotism, but I thought that under all the vitality she was profoundly miserable. It wasn’t an exhibition of remorse conducted for my benefit. I think she saw that she’d made a mistake and put all her money on a losing number. She didn’t trouble to hide it....”
“Well, my dear, she has only herself to thank.”
Eric shivered involuntarily:
“I don’t wish my worst enemy that degree of torture. And I can see no way out of it for her.”
“And, even if you could, it wouldn’t be your business. She must lead her life, Eric, and you must lead yours.”